A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
Directed by Danny Boyle

Film Review

How do you follow a massive cultural phenomenon like Trainspotting?  Presumably over-anxious not to retread similar ground, director Danny Boyle opted for something radically different for his next feature, a totally bizarre mix of genres that takes in romantic comedy, road movie, crime thriller, musical and oddball fantasy.  A Life Less Ordinary was perhaps the last thing that the critics expected Boyle to deliver after his gungy drugs-themed black comedy and, predictably, it was comprehensively panned (probably for that very reason).  Judged on its own merits rather than as a follow-up to Trainspotting, this third Danny Boyle offering is almost as daring as the two that preceded it, its one glaring flaw being its totally haphazard narrative, which seems to jump about all over the place for no good reason.  It is a film that has a rabid crisis of identity and desperately cries out for some kind of restraining influence, but that doesn't stop it being fun.

Having had ample time to grow back his hair, Ewan McGregor bears scant resemblance to the head-shaven druggie Mark Renton in Trainspotting, but he is just as funny, the unlikeliest sidekick to Cameron Diaz after Orinoco from The Wombles.  McGregor appears wonderfully out of his depth next to the glamorously demure Diaz - for much of the film, he looks as if he has accidentally gate-crashed a Hollywood blockbuster and expects to be picked up by the men from security and thrown onto the next plane for Edinburgh at any moment.   The McGregor-Diaz pairing works much better than you might think and once Diaz had made it quite clear who the star of the film is, they spark off each other magnificently.  Throw in a pair of heaven-sent cops played (a little too enthusiastically) by Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo, and what you have is an amiable mad-cap romp.  A Life Less Ordinary certainly isn't Danny Boyle's best film, but it is one of his most enjoyable lesser works.  Its highpoints include a gloriously overblown song and dance number (in which McGregor and Diaz sing that old Charles Trenet hit Beyond the Sea, appropriately sounding as if they are drowning whilst doing so) and an animated epilogue which is so cute you can't help wishing the entire film had been made the same way.  For those who were left feeling soiled, depressed and nauseous by Trainspotting, this is the perfect antidote - one hundred minutes of total unapologetic lunacy.

Film Synopsis

Robert Lewis is a lowly Scottish janitor who scrapes a meagre living by cleaning the offices of multimillionaire American businessman Elliott Naville.  He dreams of a better life but his attempts to write a bestselling novel are ridiculed by his colleagues.  Robert may not like his job but he is furious when he discovers he has been made redundant by a robot.  He storms into Naville's office in a fit of pique, but in the ensuing confusion he somehow ends up kidnapping his boss's daughter Celine at gunpoint.  Robert soon shows himself to be the worst kidnapper in the world but the good-natured Celine encourages him to persevere.  She has her own reasons for getting back at her father and she intends to take a share of the ransom demand.  Naville has no intention of paying a ransom and hires two mercenaries named O'Reilly and Jackson to rescue his daughter and kill Robert.  Little does Naville know that O'Reilly and Jackson are in fact celestial cops, who have been sent to Earth to ensure that Robert and Celine fall madly in love...