9 Criminally Underrated 2013 Films You Probably Missed

9. Pain & Gain

As difficult as it might be to accept, Michael Bay's Pain & Gain was far from the unlikable, vascular mess that it probably should have been (if expectation was anything to go by). But then that didn't stop critics sticking the boot in on expectations, or assumptions alone. No matter how much you might have wanted to hate Pain & Gain, the film was actually incredibly charming. Yes it was muscle-bound, and the decision to make the criminals - all based on real, very bad people - sympathetic figures was something of a bitter pill to swallow, particularly by victims, but the film was actually a rip-roaring and entertaining action comedy. And dare it be said, it seemed to suggest that Bay might actually have some semblance of self-awareness to him. Why You Didn't See It Probably because of the Michael Bay label on it, and the over-riding suggestion that it was going to be yet another muscle-bound exercise in mysoginy from the man who brought us such rampant sexual objectification as the Transformers movies (a heady accomplishment in that he managed to make films about giant alien robots feature gratuitous fetishism of the female form.)