Great account of Renton Scott, enjoyed reading....and a good example, as you say, of a protagonist coming up against antagonists that are not individual people, but the drugs and peer pressure become opposition characters themselves. I was amazed when this film came out over here, how much fuss there was over it...and not because of the quality of the film, but because people thought it glamorised the use of heroin. I still wonder today if the people decrying it in this way actually ever saw it...there are fewer films with less glamour in them. The only argument for "glamour" comes from the unity of friendship and the long standing support of Renton's friends, although even this can be questionable - especially Begby. The film that I thought of while writing this is Requiem for a Dream, which is a superb, but disturbing account of addiction, and not just drug addiction. As three friends go from cash-rich dealers, to desperate addicts ready to do anything for a fix, one character's mother deals with an addiction to daytime telly and prescription drugs. Requiem is another film that shows, graphically, the depths that people can sink to when addiction sets it and what they may do for their next fix. It may seem "extreme" but it isn't hard to imagine that the depths of addiction to lead to those extremes. And fair play to Jennifer Connelly....talk about "difficult" roles!

Sorry, thanks should have also gone to Jason too, but I was typing too quickly, while watching the telly and eating....

Thank you very much Mark for the kind words. Requiem for a Dream is another amazing addiction film as well. They both skip over any temptation to become generic crime thrillers and remain rooted in the emotional baggage that addiction creates. Two fierce films and filmmakers.