No Arm No Foul

There are many scenes in this movie that you might need to watch with your hands over your eyes—Sara's electroshock therapy, Marion's humiliating sex party, and any closeup of Jared Leto's face. (He's so pretty, it's blinding.)

But Harry's infected arm might be the most cringe-worthy image in the movie. He develops a red sore about two-thirds of the way into the movie, but what does Harry do? He does what he always does: he ignores it. Addicts have a tendency to do that. Later, when the sore is black and extremely painful looking, Harry injects heroin smack dab into the middle of it.

We're cringing just remembering it.

Harry's behavior here illustrates his main life strategy in the most extreme, grotesque manner. And that strategy is: stick drugs in it and it will go away. Here's what he says right before he sticks a needle directly into the festering center.

HARRY: A little stuff will take care of that.

And, you know what, it does. But not in the way Harry intends it to. The injection might make his pain go away temporarily, but the source of the infection spreads until finally, the whole freaking arm has to be cut off.

It's often said that addicts must hit rock bottom before recovering. Losing an arm seems like rock bottom to us. Or does he need to amputate his butt cheeks too?