Trainspotting (1996)

This is an imperfect-but-creditable Scottish movie. Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) is friends with a group of heroin junkies. He decides to quit the drugs and locks himself within a room until he overcomes the withdrawals. While at a club he meets a girl and goes home with her, but in the morning he discovers that she is a minor. After getting bored with sobriety he decides to take another hit and overdoses. He is rushed to the hospital and then taken to his parents’ house to recover.

The film is based on the 1993 novel by Irvine Welsh. He has a cameo as drug dealer Mikey Forrester. The film has nothing to do with trains, but the title refers to a brief scene in the book. Iggy Pop is an American songwriter. Although he has had limited commercial success, he is credited as an early innovator of punk rock. Bob Dole criticized the film during his 1996 Presidential bid for glorying drugs, but later admitted he had not actually seen it.