Lord Danny of Boyleshire - as he definitely doesn't want to be called - is such a national treasure these days that he could easily be spending the year watching his beloved Bury FC and taking the plaudits of his public. Pah. Instead, he's made Trance, a noodle-twisting thriller with hypnosis on its mind, and you can watch its first trailer below.



The London-set thriller, Boyle's first movie on the city's streets since a certain not-quite-zombie horror, pitches James McAvoy's art boffin, Simon, headfirst into a seriously dangerous world. After the theft of Goya's Witches In The Air from an auction house, he finds himself in the pocket of Vincent Cassel's ice-veined gangster, Franck.

There are echoes of Shallow Grave in that harried voiceover and of The Thomas Crown Affair in its pivotal heist (the distraction, the grab, the case...), but there's a curveball thrown in: Simon can't remember where he hid the painting. Instead of getting him to check under the bed like the rest of us, Cassel hires Rosario Dawson's hypnotherapist to mesmerise him into coughing up its location.

Intrigued? Check out the February issue of Empire for a lot more on Trance. Its UK release comes on March 27.