Trance

What an annoying spoiler trailer... what an annoying way to take something that looks really cool and interesting and turn it into another cliche and give away the bulk of the story.  Maybe the Beerbohm Award for Worst Spoiler Trailer should be issued, now.  It was dropped from the 2nd Annual Beerbohm Awards because I lumped this category into the worst trailer award.  But, this wasn't a bad trailer.  It was just a terrible spoiler trailer.

The wife really likes James McAvoy.  I like him because he's a good actor and I'm not threatened by guys who look to be around a foot shorter than I.  I say this as I look down at my lack of abs...

I like Rosario Dawson.  The wife doesn't care for her.  The wife is blond so maybe she feels threatened in some way....

The wife thinks Vincent Cassel is a good actor.  I liked him in Brotherhood of the Wolf. Otherwise he seems to play an arrogant Frenchman in every film he's in.  In Trance, he looks to play an arrogant Frenchman.  Surprise!

While Trance is really just a Hollywood double-cross caper film, the concept is better than average in an interesting, Memento, sort of way.  Remember, Memento?  

"A man, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife." (from IMDB)

What's cool about Memento is that, from the opening scene, it works backwards from his present situation to how he arrived at the situation.  It was really cool.

What looks cool about Trance is the relationship between psychiatrist, Dawson and patient, McAvoy.  McAvoy is involved in a heist, is the only one who knows where the treasure is, but was hit in the head and has amnesia.  So, the crook (Cassel) charges psychiatrist, Dawson to use hypnosis to retrieve the whereabouts from McAvoy.  In the first part of the trailer the cinematography mixed reality with hypnosis - it looked great! The acting and dialogue were believable and the whole package sucked me in.

The trailer should have ended here and I would have been interested in seeing this film.

Then they throw in a love triangle, explosions and the blatantly obvious double cross.  The trailer pretty much tells you that, after the dust settles, Dawson and McAvoy end up running off with the treasure, or were in cahoots and then they outsmart Cassel.

I know I could be wrong, I often am.  But, if I can take all this from a 2+ minute trailer, then I don't need to see this film, I don't need to waste the cost of admission or 2 hours of my life or even talk about Trance again.  The End.