World Cup Picks: Trainspotting

Soccer plays a big role in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting just as it plays a part in the daily life of its characters.  Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy, Spud, and Tommy form one of the most inept looking squads ever put on film, but it's football and the pub that bring them together.  When Trainspotting came out in 1996, it was one of the first films I'd seen that featured characters from a grimy, rave-fueled subculture who also enjoyed a sport.  What a refreshing change of pace from American films that always drive a hard line between the cool-kids and the athletes.

When Renton mischievously swaps Tommy's home-made sex tape with a rental tape of great goals, one of the film's more heartbreaking character arcs is set in motion.  Though his friends are just having a laugh by borrowing the tape, Tommy's girlfriend mistakenly thinks that he has returned the illicit video to the rental shop, so she leaves him.  Tommy, the previously clean-cut and fitness minded jock, takes the loss hard and winds up mired in the world of heroin, dirty needles, and HIV.

Boyle's film is so full of style and character that it's easy to see why it was copied so many times.  It somehow made living in a flat with friends, wearing soccer jerseys, and killing time at the pub seem so cool while simultaneously exposing the disgusting underbelly of heroin addiction.