Can you glamorise the horrific? Pain & Gain thought so, and that was the stick you could beat it with. While the names had been changed, the real-life Sun Gym gang's crimes were indeed horrific. Understandably, some felt dressing them up in a tawdry, heightened-reality aesthetic and playing it for absurd laughs smacked of bad taste. And you know what? They're probably right. It is the height of bad taste to watch The Rock barbequing human hands, or to watch Mark Wahlberg torture a Tony Shaloub sporting panty liners as eyewear. It's perfectly understandable if you can't get past that as the film keeps telling you, this stuff happened, and it wasn't pretty. But if you approached it in a different way, it was possible to find a rare oxymoron at work an intelligent Michael Bay film. Yes, there were moments of lurid awfulness, but they were intentionally buttressed up against scenes of such mind-blowing, laughable stupidity. Apart, the film's dark excesses might've been unpalatable. Yet together, they made for a queasy, confusing experience you'd laugh, but you'd feel bad for laughing, for trivialising the horror. Bay was pointing out just how awful you were, and whether you enjoyed the film depended on if you could get on board with that. You had to externalise yourself from the acts occurring onscreen, and for some, it just couldn't be done. But for others, there was a sick, flagellating joy in doing so.
Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League.
You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.
