Get a contact high with the rush of watching "Trainspotting." This is an intense, high speed story of a heroin addict through his addiction and recovery. What is great about this movie is its brutal honesty about drugs. It takes an uncompromising look at the life of a junkie while looking more like a rock video than an after school special.

The film drops into the life of Renton (Ewan McGregor), a heroin junkie, and his friends living in druggie numbness in Scotland. At this point, Renton tells himself that he is going to come off of the drugs. Not an easy feat, which involves locking himself in his room with canned food and baskets for different bodily functions; he soon gets back on the smack in a hard way. Of course this joy ride in drug fantasy land can't last, and things go from bad to worse when Renton gets arrested and then overdoses. Forced to get clean at this point, he moves away and tries to start another life for himself, but his old life interferes when his delinquent friends show up and pull him back into the dark world he tried to leave.

A basic story of fall and recovery, however, this film is different from most with its attempt to look at the malaise and drive that get people to do drugs in the first place. Ewan McGregor gives one of the greatest performances of his career with an artistic mix of charisma and junkie pathetic. Director Danny Boyle's characteristic style of quick camera cuts and edits fits the fast paced rock and roll gone wrong world of the heroin addict. This movie is not just a portrayal of the downfall of the drug induced, but a dramatic beat by beat of one man's journey to choose life.