Pain & Gain (2013)

This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I find it incredulous to believe that human beings could actually be as stupid as they are portrayed to be in this film. By the time I had watched three-fourths of the movie, I wanted bad things to happen to the three protagonists, as they would deserve whatever came their way for being utter morons. The film is filled with crude humor and vulgar language, that just comes off as being in poor taste. This movie is a monument to the glorification of crime and getting what you want without earning it. I would not recommend this film, it is unwatchable.

Pain and Gain can at best be described as a cautionary tale for the use of steroids, other drugs, and the unquenchable thirst for wealth. The problem is that there is very little evidence to suggest that this was the filmmakers' intention.Through the first 20 minutes of the movie, I was able to stomach the buffoonery of all the obnoxious characters. Actually, I even enjoyed this portion because I was under the impression that the filmmakers were intentionally mocking these muscle-headed psychopaths by portraying them as complete morons. As I continued watching, it became increasingly clear that every character involved in the story, not just the muscle heads, was a complete moron. It was then that I suspected that the filmmakers were not so much intentionally mocking the triumvirate of body builders, rather they were feeding the kidnappers what were intended to be funny lines to make these people appear more likable. This could have been done for two reasons: 1. The filmmakers were attempting to make light of a seriously dark situation so the story could be told without becoming completely off-putting. 2. The filmmakers actually enjoy these despicable sorts of characters and wanted to represent them as decent guys who just made a few mistakes. I tend to lean toward the latter since the film makes virtually no effort to empathize with any of the victims. Kershaw (Schaloub) was made out to be the least likable person in the entire movie. Given what the other geniuses were willing to do just to make a quick buck, including torturing him and beating him nearly to death, he should have been awarded at least an ounce of sympathy. Nope. Sure, he may have been a douche, but he didn't attempt to rob or kill anyone. He was a mean-spirited pre-epiphany Scrooge-type guy, not a violent felon. No doubt he was a bad guy, but he should not have been the "bad guy" of the story. Yet somehow that was the film's implication. The one highlight of the movie is the performance of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. His role of reformed drug addict who finds Jesus, loses him, then finds him again, was nearly lost amidst the mountain of crap that makes up the bulk of the movie. That pretty much sums up my feelings about Pain and Gain. It is well-suited for the type of person that enjoys tasteless jokes that lower the bar for the intelligence of all mankind and random scenes with fast cars and strippers. There is even a completely unnecessary diarrhea gag. If that's your thing, go see this movie. Otherwise go read a book, and stay away from steroids.

The last few years have been somewhat kind to the cinema meat-head. Channing Tatum has found his niche bringing sweetness and humanity to the square-jawed jock with roles in 21 Jump Street (2012) and Foxcatcher (2014), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon managing to find a heart beneath it's slick-haired, vest-wearing and gym- obsessed protagonist. Pain & Gain attempts to take a satirical swipe at the type of people who take pictures of themselves after a workout session and plaster their achievements all over social media, as three idiotic and steroid-pumped opportunists decide to take what they feel is owed to them in life. It claims to be based on a shocking true story, although the plot takes extreme liberties with the real-life events.Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is sculptured to perfection. He works at the gym where he feels he can help give anybody the body they want, and has helped his boss John Mese (Rob Corddry) turn the place around with a few smart business decisions. But his efforts have not given him the lifestyle he wants - a grand mansion, a top-of-the- range sports car, babes hanging off his massive arms, and every other materialistic pleasure life has to offer. He begins to lust after the kind of life lived by Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), and so hatches a plan to extort the man for every penny he has after being inspired by motivational speaker Jonny Wu (Ken Jeong).Along with the steroid-addled and impotency-stricken Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), Daniel recruits enormous ex-convict and cocaine addict Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) to assist him in kidnapping and torturing Kershaw until he signs over all of his assets to them. The plan works, but they fail to kill Kershaw after attempting to run him over numerous times. However, nobody believes his story of three imbeciles pulling off such a crime, choosing instead to believe it to be the result of dodgy dealings with criminal organisations. So Daniel, Paul and Adrian are allowed to live the lifestyle they have fantasised about, until they decide it isn't enough and plan to shake down smut peddler Frank Griga (Michael Rispoli), while Kershaw hires private investigator Ed DuBois (Ed Harris) to help him take back his property.It's quite a change of genre for director Michael Bay, who has spent the last few years making billions at the box-office with huge explosions and CGI robots. While Pain & Gain does demonstrate a previously unseen knack for black comedy, Bay does not possess the necessary skills to tell a story of murder and greed with the required intelligence or satire. When we should be laughing at these preening narcissists, Bay films them with his usual sickly sheen as if to admire them, obscuring the point the film is, I think, trying to make. The decision to play the film mainly for laughs is also in somewhat bad taste. While watching a coked-up Johnson remove a victim's fingerprints by grilling their dismembered hands on a barbecue is the stuff of black comedy gold, you have to remember that there were real victims in this story, and it all happened quite recently.The main positive is that the performances are all spot-on. Wahlberg is perfect as a man who values his self-worth by his possessions, and Johnson restrains himself enough in a role that could have spilled over into complete farce. A lot of the film is in fact farcical, and not in a good way. Bay insists of filling the screen with fancy wide-angled shots and outdated screen text, when a little dose of subtlety would have worked better. Yet despite its flaws and a bloated sub-plot involving Doorbal's relationship with the doctor who is injecting his penis with the necessary drugs to make it work properly (Rebel Wilson), Pain & Gain is pretty entertaining, and amusing enough to hope that Bay may think about taking a different direction to his usual blockbuster drivel (although he did make the appalling Transformers: Age of Extinction after this).

The film takes place in the year 1994-1995, which I'd imagine is Bay's favorite time period as we meet Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), who is an ex-con who got a job at a body building gym as a personal trainer. The one thing Lugo desires and constantly reminds us about is that he wants to the American Dream and thinks that he deserves to be rich and famous because he has muscles. Instantly, we see that Wahlberg has an odd charm about him, but it's a hypnotic charm as he can easily be the worst scumbag on the planet.Lugo convinces his friend and work-out partner at the gym Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) that the both of them deserve better than being trainers in this world, and that they both indeed are worthy of riches. However, instead of going about it the right way, Lugo, who has a strange and powerful way in talking to his friends to get them to do what he wants, persuades Doorbal in a crime spree that when read on paper, seems to not be true, but after a bit of research on the case, every bit of it was true.Lugo and Doorbal figure out that they need the help of one other person for their crime to be carried out where they run into Paul Doyle (Duane 'The Rock' Johnson) at the gym. Doyle is a former prison inmate, former coke-head, but now has turned sober and to Jesus. The Rock's charisma follows him from picture to picture, and even though he is a bad guy here, you can't help but like the guy. Unfortunately for Doyle, it was a case of picking the wrong gym in Miami to work out in as he was persuaded by Lugo to join their team.Their brilliant idea was to become friends with one of Lugo's clients at the gym, who was always talking about how rich he was. It was a plan to kidnap him and force him to sign all of his money and assets away to Lugo. The plan was only supposed to last a day or so, but as the kidnapped client wasn't cooperating, the three bodybuilders resorted to torture and attempted murder for over a month. I say attempted murder, because they tried to kill him by blowing up his car with gasoline with him inside it and even running him over, but they guy still survived. And you can't have just one taste of the criminal world, so the three decide to do the same thing again to another rich guy in Miami, and again, things don't go as planned. However this time, the rich guy is with his wife and are brutally murdered amongst many other things that if I wrote them out, would be a rated 'X' article.The fatal flaw in these three characters is that they are all very dumb people who can't seem to think for themselves and will do whatever anyone tells them to do. There crime escapades play out like a slap stick version of 'Goodfellas' as they can never seem to get anything right and are constantly fumbling around. The other flaw in the film is that virtually, no character is likable in the film. Even the victims by the three are not likable in any way. The only two decent characters in this painful movie have very little screen time and don't add a lot to the story other than maybe a minor laugh or two.It's as if Michael Bay was tired of making kid's movies for a while, and decided to put all of his yearning over the past few years to make a hardcore, brutal action movie again. However, this is really an action film, but more of a character piece on three low-life idiots. Some might find this movie fun. I found it tedious, annoying, and stupid. In doing a character piece, especially a narrative, I'd imagine you have to have at least one redeemable character in your movie. One that is on screen for more than 5 minutes. I don't think Bay wanted to offend anyone involved in the real case here, but more that he wanted to just show us the series of events through the killer's eyes, who are on death row as you read this. Surprising enough for a Bay film, there is not one car chase, and only one tiny car explosion. But there are plenty of other moments that will leave you covering your eyes or looking the other way. And don't fret, Bay's signature camera swoops and pans are in there plenty of times as well as his quick editing style. I bet you can't count to 6 before a camera cuts in any of his movies. It's no different here.Wahlberg and Mackie do great jobs here as amped up roided out bodybuilders who are clueless in life. The Rock is the true star of the show here as he struggles with a life of crime and a life of good. He just lights up the screen every time he is on it. They are surrounded by a strange comedic cast with Rob Corddry, Rebel Wilson, and Ken Jeong. And this might just be Tony Shaloub's best performance as he plays Lugo's first victim. Look out for Ed Harris here as well, as he turns in a short, but solid performance as well.At one point during the film, you'll see The Rock BBQ'ing something and you'll think "This is completely insane, this didn't happen." That's when the picture freezes and a title comes up on the screen and says "This is still a true story." It's that kind of movie that I think could have been better executed with a different director. Instead, we get a brutal and unlikable film that once it ends, we feel like we gained nothing and were caused a lot of pain.