Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy (Rob Heydon, 2011)

Shamelessly riding on the coattails of the iconic Trainspotting, even to the point of ripping off trademarks such as slapping character names freeze-framed on the screen as they appear and having a man scrabble around in a toilet bowl for egested drugs, this is also has to manage with lesser casting and flatter photography than its predecessor's. That said, the script does its best to stretch out one of Welsh's more generic short stories, that of an ageing club drug dealer trying to get out of the game, and leaven it with humour and romantic elements. It is by no means the abysmal failure that some critics would have you believe when considered on its own merits, all-importantly capturing the rave mindstate almost as effectively as Human Traffic did, even if it is then rather over-reliant on filling screentime with this. But the shadow cast by its towering forebear is basically impossible to escape from.

5/10