Movie Review: "Trance"

"Trance": B-.  I doubt that during the rest of this year I will attend a movie more complicated than Trance. I hope I am not wrong, as the final reel is the epitome of storytelling whose wheels come off the wagon. The tale starts out promisingly enough, with a daring heist of the Goya masterpiece, The Flying Witches,during an art auction. It is an inside job, as one of the auction house's presenters, Simon (James McAvoy), is a key player in the plot. His assignment is to lift the painting from its easel during the pandemonium caused by his three bad buddies rolling smoke bombs along the floor of the crowded room. Everything goes according to plan until Simon, perhaps suffering a brain cramp, decides to zap the small gang's leader, Franck (Vincent Cassel), with a stun gun. Franck is momentarily incapacited, but recovers in time to deliver a smashing right cross to Simon's left temple. Those four seconds of action turn out to be a key catalyst in the movie.

All of the robbers except for the knocked-out Simon manage a successful getaway, only to discover when they get to their safe house that the contents of the large rectangular zipper bag they have carted away consist of an empty frame, where once resided the famed Flying Witches. Immediately they collectively accuse Simon of somehow hiding the painting during the few seconds of opportunity he had between the time he lifted it off the easel and the time he zapped Franck. By this time Simon has regained consciousness, but is still walking around in a daze. Franck and his cronies have no trouble locating Simon, who is not really trying to hide, and after administering a gruesome torture which would make water boarding seem an acceptable method of interrogation, they conclude that Simon is not lying when he says he can't remember where he put the painting. In order to elicit that precious information, they will need a hypnotist. Enter Dr. Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson).

Before Simon has his appointment with Elizabeth, Franck hides a wire inside Simon's jacket. The gang is afraid that Simon may reveal the whereabouts of the painting to Elizabeth without them finding out. But Elizabeth spots the cord protruding from Simon's coat, and it isn't long before she demands an equal piece of the pie from Franck and the boys in return for her assistance. There is no honor among thieves, including Elizabeth, but as the only woman and as the only hypnotist, she has the talent that the men do not possess to extract secret information. The ability to exert control of the mind and the male libido are her powerful tools.

The last half of the movie is a muddled mishmash of real time, hallucinogenics, dreams and flashbacks. Sometimes we see the same occurrences twice, and we wonder which version is the one we're suppose to go with. Sometimes we never find out; other times we can draw a fairly confident conclusion, an educated guess, if you will. An example of the latter case pertains to a woman who, while driving a red car, accidentally hits Simon as he is deliriously crossing a busy street within minutes of the art theft. Just as the blow delivered by Franck to Simon's head is an important moment, so is the collision with Simon ending up on her windshield.

I am a fan of Cassel, a French actor who impresses me as a a Frank Sinatra type, i.e., a skinny guy who is a lot tougher than you might initially believe. He comes off as someone you'd better not cross. His physique belies his fortitude. The character of Elizabeth requires the actress to deliver a mixture of professionalism in the doctor's office, shrewdness in the conferences with her accomplices, and allure in the boudoir. Dawson hits the trifecta.

The last movie I attended featuring this kind of "state of mind" trajectory was Inception in 2010, to which I gave a (pre-blog) rating of C. Of the thirty-one movies I attended that year, I had only Clash Of The Titans rated lower. I did enjoy Trance to a moderately greater extent, mostly because the real time action was exciting and the acting was top notch. Additionally, the core of the movie, viz., the machinations of a den of thieves trying to play each other, is a timeless theme.