Billy Riddoch Movies
Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), a young man with few prospects and fewer ambitions, lives in economically depressed Edinburgh. Like most of his friends, Renton is a heroin addict who loves the drug's blissful nothingness; financing his habit also provides excitement and challenges that his life otherwise lacks. Renton's two best friends are also junkies: Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), a snappy dresser obsessed with James Bond, and Spud (Ewan Bremner), a guileless nerd who suggests Pee Wee Herman's debauched cousin. Renton and his pals also hang out with Begbie (Robert Carlyle), a borderline psychotic who loathes junkies even though he drinks like a fish. After one too many brushes with the law, Renton kicks heroin and moves to London, where he finds a job, a flat, and something close to peace of mind. However, Sick Boy, Begbie, and Spud all arrive at his doorstep on the trail of a big score, leading Renton back into drugs and crime. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, (more)
The feature film debut of Scottish director Danny Boyle was a dark, hip, Generation X comedy about a trio of Edinburgh roommates whose narcissistic greed fuels murder and betrayal. Boisterous journalist Alex (Ewan McGregor), flirtatious doctor Juliet (Kerry Fox), and meek accountant David (Christopher Eccleston) possess very different personalities, but the roommates are bonded in mutual, self-absorbed cynicism. Seeking a fourth boarder to share the rent for their stylish flat, they cruelly dismiss several candidates before settling on Hugo (Keith Allen), whose air of detachment meets the roommates' standard of coolness. Hugo's reserve masks criminal involvement, however, as the roommates discover when they find him dead in bed from a drug overdose, with a valise containing enormous amounts of cash. Their nascent greed overwhelms them, and the trio dismembers and buries Hugo, stealing his money. Only David, who understands finance, seems to realize that someone's eventually going to seek out such a large sum. As both drug dealers and police get closer to figuring out the friends' secret, shy, nerdy David becomes violently paranoid, while Juliet's allegiance switches back and forth between her roommates. Boyle teamed subsequently with producer Andrew Macdonald and screenwriter John Hodge on several high-profile films. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, (more)
- 1992
Out of simple humanity, a young, lame Scottish bachelor rescued a woman who has washed up on the shores of the Isle of Mull. She is a bit of a mystery, as she is half-frozen and her hands have been tied together. Apparently, whoever set her adrift didn't care whether she lived or died. As she recovers, she begins to bring order into the bachelor's cottage. She takes the young man into her bed, also, and begins setting him straight. Before long, she undertakes to do the same for the local fishing industry, even in the face of opposition from the fishermen whose lives she is improving. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robin McCaffrey
- 1980
- R
Director Bertrand Tavernier provides an unexpected feminist slant to the otherwise standard sci-fi trappings of Death Watch. Harvey Keitel plays a man of the future who has had a camera implanted in his brain. The mechanism, which is endowed with special X-ray properties, is activated by the user's eyes. Keitel is assigned by ruthless TV producer Harry Dean Stanton to secretly probe the subconscious of a dying woman, played by Romy Schneider. Stanton is only interested in the grim spectacle of what goes on inside the brain of someone who knows she's doomed. Keitel, on the other hand, becomes increasingly compassionate--and disgusted by the tawdriness of his assignment--as he stares into Schneider's tortured psyche. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Romy Schneider, Harvey Keitel, (more)
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