For What it's Worth

Trance

Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring Vincent Cassel, James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson
Rated R

Danny Boyle’s always had a way of tethering tension onscreen, keeping the audience on the edge while holding back just enough. Think of the calm serenity among the crew aboard the spaceship in Sunshine as it voyages uncertainly toward the sun on a mission to save an ice-encased Earth, or the pot head Eden in The Beach who ultimately erupts into Lord of the Flies savagery, and even before James Franco’s adventure seeker in 127 Hours gets pinned under the cruelest of all boulders, there’s a forbidding pall that hangs over him even as he frolics with two nubile hikers in a remote canyon pool.

Trance comes out of the gate a bit meaner as a midday hold-up of a London auction house goes somewhat sideways and the coveted object of the heist, Goya’s “Witches in Air,” winds up missing. It turns out Simon (James McAvoy), one of the auctioneers, is in cahoots with the robbers, but because he took a gun butt to the head during the robbery, he can’t remember where the Goya’s stashed.  Continue reading →