Craig Fairbrass stars in this laudably gruelling descent into a macho underworld of dumbbells and sexual debauchery
Gerard Johnson, writer-director of the serial-killer flick Tony and the corrupt-cop thriller Hyena, both set in London, travels 300 miles north to continue his run of blackly comic dramas. Muscle takes place in Newcastle (not that you’d know it from the cockney accents), where Simon (Cavan Clerkin) has a soul-crushing sales job and a moribund relationship. Can his tough new personal trainer Terry (Craig Fairbrass) guide him towards a healthier, more hopeful outlook?
Not likely. Every depressing detail, from Simon’s ill-fitting work shirts to the concrete car parks he walks past on his commute, underline what a colourless existence this is. At first, the choice to shoot in black and white seems unnecessary – until Terry embeds himself further, moving into Simon’s spare room and using the house to host extremely grim sex parties. At this point, the absence of realistic flesh tones is revealed as a blessed mercy; the realistic flesh-slapping sounds are horror enough.