Danny's back on the Boyle

Danny Boyle fans will be pleased with his latest offering, a return to the stylish tricks of earlier films such as Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. His new film involves mental gymnastics and a group of art thieves.

Film: Trance

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson

Auctioneer Simon (McAvoy) is attacked during a robbery by a gang led by a man named Franck (Cassell).

As a result, he suffers amnesia. When the gang realise that he's hidden the Goya painting they were after and can't remember where he put it, they first try to torture him and then enlist the services of hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Dawson) to help Simon get his memory back. It's at this point that things start getting complicated.

Boyle takes great pleasure in examining the power and visual potential of hypnosis, and we're left trying to figure out whose playing who and what's real or imagined.

Either that or, as one of my fellow reviewers remarked after the screening: "It's a very elaborate excuse to get Rosario Dawson to take her clothes off."

This is not a big budget Christopher Nolan-style puzzler but it has a sexiness and enough noirish style to keep the audience intrigued for most of its short, sharp duration.

While I doubt it's clever enough to provoke hours of post-watch interrogation about who did what to whom, it' s quite enjoyable as a psychological thriller with a bit of an old-fashioned B-movie premise held together by Dawson's femme fatale . It's a role that she excels in and manages to pull off in spite of McAvoy's generally tortured facial twists and Cassel's watch-model machismo. It's also good to see Boyle enjoying himself and exercising the anarchic impishness that he's kept in check for too long.

By the time the concept falls apart and things self-destruct, it's very possible that you would've had too much fun and struggle to be disappointed. The real test will be remembering for a friend at home what happened to whom and why.

'Trance' opens today

ALSO OPENING

SILENT HILL

A GUTSY mother searches for her lost daughter in a ghost town called Silent Hill, evacuated after a mining disaster. Unbelievably boring. - The Guardian