Blu-ray Review: Danny Boyle’s ‘Trance’ Isn’t Hypnotizing Enough

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CHICAGO – It may sound harsh but “Trance” will be a mere footnote in the career of Danny Boyle. It’s neither one of his best but also far from his worst film. The mega-talented director of “Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting,” and “127 Hours” brings his confident style to the film but the convoluted script turns in on itself so many times that I think even Boyle got a little bored with it. Rosario Dawson overplays but Vincent Cassel once again intrigues and James McAvoy delivers. It will be a footnote for them all.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Again, I don’t mean that to sound so harsh. When people look back on the careers of creative people, it’s the highs and lows that they remember most of all. “Trance” is neither. It’s a solid, down-the-middle, decent rental. Boyle is such a talented filmmaker that he can make nearly anything interesting but he struggles with a mystery that gets less involving as it’s revealed. The cast is pretty good but Dawson over-acts to an alarming degree and Cassel walks away with the movie. Again.

Special features are kind of slight but the making-of is more interesting than most simply because Danny Boyle is a great interview subject. Deleted scenes are also more engaging than average, fleshing out a few of the character beats.

Trance was released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 23, 2013
Photo credit: Fox

Synopsis:
From Academy Award®-Winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) comes an “exhilarating brain-twister” (New York Post)! After a blow to the head during his attempted robbery of a $27 million Goya painting, Simon (James McAvoy, X-Men: First Class), a fine-art auctioneer, awakens to find that the painting - and his memory - are missing. Forced by his ruthless crime partner Franck (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan) to undergo hypnosis, Simon enters into a deadly love triangle with his seductive hypnotist (Rosario Dawson, Sin City). As the plot twists, the line between reality and dream becomes blurred in this fast-paced, unpredictable, “sexy and suspenseful” (Empire) thriller.

Special Features:
o The Power Of Suggestion: Making Trance: Danny’s Film Noir, Hypnotherapy, The Look, The Final Rewrite
o Danny Boyle Retrospective
o Short Film: Eugene By Spencer Susser
o Deleted Scenes

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com