Trance (2013)

Gotchya films that spin on corkscrew narratives –- “Manchurian Candidate” is my favorite -– succeed only if we care about the characters and only if we dig the deep pit the screenwriters have tossed them into. Danny Boyle’s “Trance” is all crazy turns, pulled rugs, blown loyalties, and bad guys still gabbing after their skull has been shot off. The shocks and surprises hit so often and so outlandishly OTT, it passes suspense and becomes a comedic parade of drunken one-uppers. Numbness sets in. James McAvoy works at an auction house that falls prey to a heist just as a Renoir goes to sale. The work is seemingly lost and our hero is cracked on the skull, leading to memory loss. The heist master (Seymor Cassell) won’t have that and when torture fails, he hires a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) to peer inside McAvoy’s brain. So to speak. The headachy flash edits are frantic and too hip. The flat characters don’t help. I really could have lived without ever hearing surround sound of vaginal hair being shaved. Boyle, it appears, could not. And if you can get past the firestorm finale without laughing to excess, I salute you. C

Trainspotting (1996)

Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” is an adrenaline shot of cinematic greatness about heroin addicts that dares show the quick pleasure of shooting up. Bob Dole balked. Idiot. No “ABC School Special” has ever shown an addict hand-fishing for a dropped stash in a shit-filled toilet, or a guy waking up slathered in diarrhea after losing his bowels, or an infant dying from neglect. This tale of poor Scots who see their parents struggling to earn a pound and figure why not shoot up, is the real deal writ large and depraved. It’s sickly fascinating to watch, a stoned mad-hatter film akin to “Clockwork Orange” or “Romper Stomper,” but to live it? No. Ewan McGregor is a guy who wants heroin over the big house, bigger TV, fancy car, and a job, and Boyle, writer John Hodge (taking on Irvine Welsh’s book) charge those commodities as no better than a shot of white liquid. Only an idiot, or a conservative, would see the finale as happy when a druggie says life will be OK with a wad of money. In a film full of sick jokes, it’s the most repugnant laugh of all. That said, this pales next to 2000’s stellar “Requiem for a Dream.” A

127 Hours (2010)

A hiker named Aron Ralston goes out on his own to Utah’s famed Canyonlands National Park, and dicks around, young guy stuff, all bravado and all by himself. He’s bold and brash and ready to go-go-go … until one bad move sends a massive boulder smashing against his right arm and a crevice wall. “Oops.” His words. Not mine. You know the rest of "127 Hours," right? This is one amazing true story, nearly all of its 90-minute stuck in one place. With Aron. “Hours” vibes loud as life because director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”) doesn’t just show us Aron’s FUBAR predicament, he puts us in Aron’s desperate situation. Aron is careless, but he’s no dummy. His engineering training saves his life, along with a cheap knife. Yes, that arm comes off. But it's not cheap horror-film gore. The blood and tissue are nasty, difficult to watch, but real. Visceral. James Franco gives a killer performance – reckless, geeky, scared, desperate, starving, delirious, comical and fully determined. Boyle’s film soars on Aron’s – Franco’s – spirit, and amazing editing and camera work. A-

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Not too go all superlative, but "Slumdog Millionaire" is the most exhilarating, electric, shocking, dazzling, vibrantly alive, and romantic film of 2008. (Notice the absence of "uplifting".) Its energy jumps with dazzling visuals, a pulsating sound mix, charisma-loaded actors, and the best film score of any Hollywood feature in years. To think this gem nearly went straight to DVD and suffered through studio hand-offs over xenophobic fears of marketing and profit. (Yet, Warner spent a $100 million on "Rush Hour 3"? A 20th Century Fox subsidiary released this. Good for them.) In 2008, as the economy and nation, the world seems to be derailing, derailed, this is the film we need, now more than ever, in 2007 or maybe next.

Straight off, the film is an ironic, reality-free fable in vein with a Dickens novel or any of the countless fantasy stories of a desperate child who grows up to make good, but new and exciting. It opens with a 20-ish man Jamal (Dev Patel) successfully blazing his way through India's version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," the game show where participants answer A, B,C, D questions for huge money. Jamal is a child of Mumbai's harshest slums. Being a "slumdog" (basically an offensive term for India's poor), he can't be intelligent and push his way to win the game. Or so he's told. As are we. Tossed in jail as a cheat, Dev takes his policemen captors through his life story and why he knew each answer. The scene rockets -- this film moves fast -- to Jamal in his early school years.

His best friend/worst enemy is his brother Said (Madhur Mittal as an adult). The young boys' lives are harsh and the film pulls no punches in its portrayal of staggering poverty, or savage and graphic child abuse, including sexual. Orphaned after their Muslim mother is killed in a religious-sparked attack, the boys steal, improvise, and con to eat and stay alive. As they grow older Jamal manages to keep his soul; to borrow a phrase from "Lost," he has a constant -- the beautiful Latika (Freida Pinto in adulthood), a fellow orphan -- to keep him grounded. But Said has no focus, and becomes hooked on violence and inflicting pain.

Back and forth the film goes, from the game show to the jail to the past for a dizzying ride. I can't say the film is realistic in the least, Jamal's luck on the show seems to be directed by God, and the script (by Simon Beaufoy) is more than happy to play that card with a wink and a nudge. And, there definitely is a devil in the detail, the game show's host (Irfan Kahn, an Indian star who could make mincemeat of Alan Rickman in a Sleaze Contest), himself a survivor of the slums who will not allow anyone to mimic his success.

Here, director Danny Boyle surpasses even the pulverizing world he painted in "Trainspotting." Every color pops with neon life, and the camera doesn't just capture the action, it is the action. A long scene at the Taj Mahal makes you feel as if you're a visitor, and when the orphans race through the mazelike slum alleyways fleeing policemen, the camera is right on their heels. This tale of children is not for children, it is full of death and moments so harsh you'll gasp in horror, but "Slumdog" has more life, joy, and hope than any film released this year. The spark, the fight, the energy on screen, in the lives of these characters, we need it now, across the globe. Cherry on the cake: The closing credits has the cast singing and dancing on a train platform to a spectacular Bollywood musical number. So damn good. My favorite film of 2008. A