Somewhere between transcendent, legendary filmmakers and reliable, interesting directors, lies the career of Danny Boyle. While Boyle has never been consistently listed among the titans of the craft – Kubrick, Kurosawa, Scorsese, etc. – his work has changed the face of cinema a time or two. And he’s made a handful of great work over the years.
And, like most directors, he’s made some stinkers. It happens. T2 Trainspotting, the first sequel of his career (he was a producer on 28 Weeks Later) and his twelfth feature film, is out this week in wide release. And judging from the trailers and UK buzz, it has the potential to give the original a run for its money.
Let’s take a look at Danny Boyle’s work over the last twenty plus years, and see how they stack up against one another.
2. Trainspotting
Shallow Grave may have been Danny Boyle’s film debut, but it was Trainspotting that put him on the map. It hit like an atomic bomb on cinema in the late 90s, a hip, sometimes hilarious, often disturbing, hyper-stylized look at a group of friends and heroin addicts trying to get from point A to point B in their lives. Headed up by Ewan McGregor, Trainspotting is an episodic glimpse of a life most of us fortunately never experience, told through the lens of disgusting antics. Anyone who dismisses Trainspotting as a film that glamorizes drug use hasn’t ever really seen it.
