Trauma

An unemployed loner (Firth) recovering from a road accident becomes obsessed with a murdered pop star and with the prospect that his wife, supposedly killed in the crash, might not be dead after all.

In recent months we have had two excellent British films released in our cinemas. Geoffrey Rush gave what could well be the performance of his life in "The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers" and "Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" producer Matthew Vaughn made a fine impression with "Layer Cake", his directing debut. "Trauma" is a Warner-BBC co-production that is both confused and pretentious and it seems longer than it's running time. Director Marc Evans fails to generate any suspense and the twist in Richard Smith's screenplay when it comes is hardly worth waiting for. Some moody cinematography from John Mathieson and a good performance from Colin Firth offer a little compensation, but one can't help thinking that this should have been confined to the BBC's airwaves rather than our cinemas.

I watched this all the way through, though I cant pretend I liked it. The overwhelming impression of this movie was confusion. I had zero idea of what the hell was going on. All the effects of a shocker movie were there, the insects,the momentary glimpses of things undetermined, to raise the tension, the creepy caretaker, the muted colouring, the mutilated corpse, flashbacks, the almost abandoned building which was an ex hospital with, handily, a morgue in the basement ! etc etc. For me a movie must have entertainment value, there was none here, the story was nasty all the way through. Acting ? Colin Firth, Mena Suvari... first class as you would expect when you manage to acquire actors of their standing you want to put them in a better vehicle than this movie.

Another dismal dud from the British film industry. This has all the things that make the average Brit movie so dire: downbeat story and settings, pretentious 'realistic' performances and an incoherent, showy style. Any film that starts with the death of a character that we - naturally - feel absolutely nothing for gets off on the wrong foot. After a short while we're as confused as poor old unshaven Colin Firth, who wears a puzzled frown throughout. Mena Suvari turns up now and then, but really shouldn't have bothered. Indeed, she might as well have phoned her performance in like she did in American Pie 2. Everything stinks about this film: the laughable press headlines (would The Mirror really have 'Caught You! Killer could be on film' as a header in the circumstances the film presents?), the stupid, grim settings (who lives in a barely converted hospital?) and the obscure, confusing story development that tries to be clever but just annoys. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this turkey.

One description of Trauma is "An event or situation that causes great distress and disruption". Thats exactly what this film did to me because I was distressed from having to pay £10 to see it (two tickets) and disrupted from having to spend a VERY long hour and a half watching it.

As soon as I saw the BBC films logo I knew I was in for something rubbish. Don't get me wrong, some BBC funded films are good but this is just dire. A lot of the set pieces have smacks of Jacobs Ladder about them and about half way through the film I thought thats exactly just what this film was about.

Performances by Colin Firth et al are not bad although being a British film it suffers from the grime and depression that most films from our island seem to conform to.

Disjointed, hard to follow and with an ending that leaves you with a horrid taste in your mouth, Trauma is definitely one to wait either for DVD rental or TV.

It sometimes gives masterpieces:of course "spellbound " comes to mind.But "Spellbound " was made at a time when screenplays were elaborate and there was no place for vagueness.

"Trauma" turns on the ambiguousness: nightmares,hallucinations, shrink consultation,medium,investigation,TV news,it's hard to find your way through this muddled plot.It borrows sometimes from "Jacob's ladder" ( the nightmare (?) in the hospital)but its conclusion,unlike Adrian Lyne's work, does not make much sense.

A man (Colin Firth,28 in the movie,actually 44 when the movie was made)has lost his wife in a road accident and he was at the wheel.At the same time ,a female pop star is murdered.The widower suffers from amnesia and when he tries to find back his past, it will be nothing that he expected of course...

As for Colin Firth,why don't you watch "another country" or "apartment zero" instead?