T2 Trainspotting.

Twenty years have passed since Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) run off with the proceeds of a drug deal that was meant to be divvied up between himself, Spud Murphy (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and hard man Begbie (Robert Carlyle). The only person who did receive his share was Spud who wasted no time in shooting-up £4K of heroin. Now Renton has returned from Amsterdam where he has been living since leaving Edinburgh. His first task is saving Spud from suicide and then he teams back up with his best friend Simon repaying the 4K he owed him and offering to help him, and his beautiful East European girlfriend Veronica (Angela Nedyalkova), convert the pub his aunt left him into a brothel. Although his relationship with Simon is still not what it was before he left it’s when Begbie escapes from prison and discovers that he is back that his life expectancy starts to deteriorate.

 

Mark and Simon celebrate setting up a business with Veronica.

Reuniting the original cast with another great screenplay from John Hodge and with most of the filming taking place in Edinburgh, Boyle has succeeded in obtaining a believable 20-year gap between the two films. Scotland has changed since the time of the first film, with a diluted form devolution arriving since the original films release and a close run independence referendum taking place in 2014 (and another about to be announced). Its not the same country it was when Rent Boy and the others ran down Princes Street, even the movies premier took place in Edinburgh and not Leicester Square. But both the characters and Scotland are still victims of a system that neither like nor respect but both are working hard to change this. Even more so that we are being forced out of Europe against our will and being informed that we have to be grateful for scrapes from the table of a man that is the political version of Begbie.

 

Still as fit as ever - or are they?

This sequel to Danny Boyle's 1996 movie is absolutely cracking piece of adult entertainment and a credit to its predecessor. How anybody can fail to enjoy T2 Trainspotting (2017) is beyond me.