Former Herald film critic William Russell was highly critical off the original Trainspotting movie. So we asked him to re-watch it to see if he still thought it was xxxxxxx

WHEN Trainspotting opened in 1996 I dismissed it as “juvenile, inane, asinine, puerile”. Looked at again, Danny Boyle’s black comedy really does mean I need to eat my words. The portrait of the drug culture in parts of Edinburgh that screenwriter John Hodge conjured up from Irvine Welsh’s short stories is sordid, packed with bad language and scatological. Blatantly designed to shock the film duly did but re-seen there is no getting away from the skill with which director Boyle – abetted by a still terrific soundtrack – put it all up on screen.

What shocked me then does not do so now. Trainspotting has recently been put on stage and the overflowing toilet in which the drug stash is hidden, the excrement stained sheets tossed about, the dead baby, the casual sex and violence provoked no audience outrage, just the slightly appalled laughter of people having a carefree night out enjoying being safely dangerous.

The film launched the careers of several actors who mostly went on to bigger and, although not always, better things. It also created a sort of “cool Scotia” fashionable at the time and blew a raspberry in the direction, not as Welsh would have it of a mist-filled Brigadoon Scotland, but of Braveheart, Mel Gibson’s silly blue and white face paint Scottish western, its immediate predecessor.

Trainspotting gave the world a Scotland which had nothing to do with kilts, haggis, Whisky Galore!, rewriting history and blaming the English for all our ills, but I do not think it contributed anything to the independence debate of the years that followed.

Those spotty unknowns now have baggage from other roles to contend with when it comes to re-inhabiting the characters and the drug world is no longer another country for audiences, so Trainspotting 2 will be interesting. Sequels can work artistically – French Connection 2 is always cited – but can be just a case of cashing in on past success. What matters is whether Boyle and Hodge have anything new to say. But I got it wrong. Trainspotting, even if slightly dated, remains a roller coaster ride.