"Pain & Gain" - directed by Michael Bay
There is a moment in "Pain & Gain" in which Ed Harris' character says - 'They say that truth is stranger than fiction'.
This movie - based on a true story - could be the new frontrunner as evidence for the sentiment.
But given that the $26,000,000 movie took in a profitable but low by Bay/Wahlberg/Johnson standards $49,789,000 in domestic box office I wonder if the 'This is a true story' tagline hurt the film.
It's a shame if so because this sordid little tale of drugs, violence and extortion could well be Michael Bay's best film.
It is certainly his best made.
Clearly the principals had faith in it as that production budget points to them working for less than they normally command.
(In fact all three took no salaries in lieu of back ends on the final profits)
With Wahlberg taking the lead in Bay's currently shooting "Transformers 4" maybe this was a trial run for the pair.
It's a match I like.
This film also reunites Bay and Ed Harris who worked together in "The Rock".
"Pain & Gain" has much of the style of the directors early work before he got carried away and threw out all restraint with cinematography, effects, music and editing.
"Transformers 3" started him back on the right track and this film looks to be another step in a direction I hope he continues.
First a word about those 'True Story' claims.
For the most part the movie does follow the general gist of the real events.
A criminal group of bodybuilders kidnap a wealthy man and force him to sign over his money, cars and properties to them. It all ends badly.
The film ditches a few characters from the criminal gang, morphs Wahlbergs character together from aspects of several, changes some names and even some nationalities (the Victor character is in reality Argentinian not Colombian).
Most of the events are pretty much on the money.
Some of them are expanded - Hollywood-ised if you will- but nothing too radically so.
Personally I don't mind if movies change things from the source material- be they books, historical events or in this case a series of articles in The Miami New Times.
Whatever makes for a better movie is fine by me so long as it keeps the general tale intact and doesn't hide the changes.
For the most part I suspect that the bigger changes in "Pain & Gain" make the film funnier.
I stop short of calling this a comedy but it is certainly frequently very, very funny.
Wahlberg is pretty funny, Johnson funnier and Rebel Wilson funniest of all.
Playing the great Anthony Mackie's girlfriend she steals every scene that she is in.
Her performance was my favourite but I was most impressed by what Dwayne Johnson does here.
The big man throws out every on screen trait that we associate with him to play a Jesus loving, prone to violence, recovering alcoholic, cocaine snorting, stripper screwing buffoon.
Mentally his character is only a little dumber than his two partners in crime.
Adrian (Mackie) has hit the steroids too hard and suffers from sexual side effects and Daniel (Wahlberg) is driven by the 'teachings' of a shady TV motivational con-man (Ken Jeong) and is bent on achieving what he believes the American Dream to be.
And all of them are completely obsessed with bodybuilding.
There's the hook for this film - a criminal gang of bodybuilders.
It sounds absurd and it surely is.
In the hands of another director like say a Scorsese, Soderbergh or David O Russell this could have been sharply satirical.
Satire, I suspect is not in Michael Bay's repertoire so instead he delivers a Coen Brothers-esque farce mixed with a dash of "Bad Boys".
There is a little hint of later years Tony Scott movie to it also- mainly in the colour pallet.
Praise Buddha Bay has re-learned how to shoot a movie properly and everything on screen is clear and well constructed.
There are even some nice little references with Wahlberg displaying some Calvin Klein underwear from his days as a model in one scene.
Bay may be in restrained mode but we still get a few swirling low angle shots of Johnson and Wahlbergs glistening torsos and the obligatory Jumbo Jet flying above a character at low altitude.
Still, this is a nicely shot, well edited film.
In terms of the R18 it may have been hard done by.
There is no single aspect that warrants the maximum rating and I imagine it is the combination of language, drug use, nudity and violence that got it hit so hard by the ratings board.
Or maybe it is the warehouse full of dildos and sex toys.
Regardless I think that an R16 would have sufficed.
The violence is very restrained considering that dismemberment, shootings, toe removal via bullet and death by syringe are featured.
The nudity is extremely brief and the language is mild for the most part compared to recent films such as "The World's End" or "Hangover III".
A seedy tone is maintained throughout thanks to these 'features' however and it suits the film.
There are maybe one or two major characters in the entire movie who aren't complete douchebags.
One is a private detective - the other an Illegal immigrant stripper.
When characters such as these are the most likeable you know you are dealing with some lowlife types.
Even the 'victim' of the crime (a great Tony Shalhoub) is not at all likeable.
Ed Harris plays the detective and he does tend to lend class to any character he plays.
The very sexy Israeli model Bar Paly plays the stripper Sorina.
She is only marginally dumber than the musclebound lead three.
Watching her get duped is one of the comedy highlights of the film.
Her final scene in particular finds the character in head-slappingly dense form.
And that is the fun in this movie- you get to watch very dumb people do very dumb things.
I loved the scene in which Wahlberg and Mackie try to return a cheap chainsaw that has evidence of the botched body dismemberment all through its cheap metal teeth.
I hope that this movie does gangbusters internationally and on dvd/Blu-ray because it is an entertaining movie that deserves success.
If it falters it will send the wrong signal to Michael Bay that he is better off sticking to the Transformers and the overblown nonsense that most of his movies of late have been.
He shows with "Pain & Gain" that he still has the ability to make good movies that entertain with more than just the best special effects that money can buy.
I really enjoyed this film and I loved watching Dwayne Johnson throw all caution to the wind to play a deeply flawed man doing some outrageously illegal, immoral and ill-advised things.
Instead of pondering what might have been had this been treated with a more satirical eye by a more 'serious' director I prefer to just wallow in Bay's take.
It is very dumb people doing very dumb things.
Watching these morons spiral further and further out of control is a great way to spend two hours.
It is a mistake to think that "Pain & Gain" as a movie is dumb- it isn't.
It knows exactly what it is doing from the terrific casting choices to the score to the editing and yes- the direction.
It's a different Michael Bay movie and that in itself almost makes it a must see.
This movie - based on a true story - could be the new frontrunner as evidence for the sentiment.
But given that the $26,000,000 movie took in a profitable but low by Bay/Wahlberg/Johnson standards $49,789,000 in domestic box office I wonder if the 'This is a true story' tagline hurt the film.
It's a shame if so because this sordid little tale of drugs, violence and extortion could well be Michael Bay's best film.
It is certainly his best made.
Clearly the principals had faith in it as that production budget points to them working for less than they normally command.
(In fact all three took no salaries in lieu of back ends on the final profits)
With Wahlberg taking the lead in Bay's currently shooting "Transformers 4" maybe this was a trial run for the pair.
It's a match I like.
This film also reunites Bay and Ed Harris who worked together in "The Rock".
"Pain & Gain" has much of the style of the directors early work before he got carried away and threw out all restraint with cinematography, effects, music and editing.
"Transformers 3" started him back on the right track and this film looks to be another step in a direction I hope he continues.
 |
| Yes- these are shots taken from the same movie (left-right: Mackie, Wahlberg, Johnson) |
For the most part the movie does follow the general gist of the real events.
A criminal group of bodybuilders kidnap a wealthy man and force him to sign over his money, cars and properties to them. It all ends badly.
The film ditches a few characters from the criminal gang, morphs Wahlbergs character together from aspects of several, changes some names and even some nationalities (the Victor character is in reality Argentinian not Colombian).
Most of the events are pretty much on the money.
Some of them are expanded - Hollywood-ised if you will- but nothing too radically so.
Personally I don't mind if movies change things from the source material- be they books, historical events or in this case a series of articles in The Miami New Times.
Whatever makes for a better movie is fine by me so long as it keeps the general tale intact and doesn't hide the changes.
For the most part I suspect that the bigger changes in "Pain & Gain" make the film funnier.
I stop short of calling this a comedy but it is certainly frequently very, very funny.
Wahlberg is pretty funny, Johnson funnier and Rebel Wilson funniest of all.
Playing the great Anthony Mackie's girlfriend she steals every scene that she is in.
Her performance was my favourite but I was most impressed by what Dwayne Johnson does here.
 |
| Rebel Wilson and Tony Shalhoub |
Mentally his character is only a little dumber than his two partners in crime.
Adrian (Mackie) has hit the steroids too hard and suffers from sexual side effects and Daniel (Wahlberg) is driven by the 'teachings' of a shady TV motivational con-man (Ken Jeong) and is bent on achieving what he believes the American Dream to be.
And all of them are completely obsessed with bodybuilding.
There's the hook for this film - a criminal gang of bodybuilders.
It sounds absurd and it surely is.
In the hands of another director like say a Scorsese, Soderbergh or David O Russell this could have been sharply satirical.
Satire, I suspect is not in Michael Bay's repertoire so instead he delivers a Coen Brothers-esque farce mixed with a dash of "Bad Boys".
There is a little hint of later years Tony Scott movie to it also- mainly in the colour pallet.
Praise Buddha Bay has re-learned how to shoot a movie properly and everything on screen is clear and well constructed.
There are even some nice little references with Wahlberg displaying some Calvin Klein underwear from his days as a model in one scene.
Bay may be in restrained mode but we still get a few swirling low angle shots of Johnson and Wahlbergs glistening torsos and the obligatory Jumbo Jet flying above a character at low altitude.
Still, this is a nicely shot, well edited film.
 |
| Porn Kings and Strippers.... Michael Imperioli (left) and Bar Paly (right with Wahlberg) |
There is no single aspect that warrants the maximum rating and I imagine it is the combination of language, drug use, nudity and violence that got it hit so hard by the ratings board.
Or maybe it is the warehouse full of dildos and sex toys.
Regardless I think that an R16 would have sufficed.
The violence is very restrained considering that dismemberment, shootings, toe removal via bullet and death by syringe are featured.
The nudity is extremely brief and the language is mild for the most part compared to recent films such as "The World's End" or "Hangover III".
A seedy tone is maintained throughout thanks to these 'features' however and it suits the film.
There are maybe one or two major characters in the entire movie who aren't complete douchebags.
One is a private detective - the other an Illegal immigrant stripper.
When characters such as these are the most likeable you know you are dealing with some lowlife types.
Even the 'victim' of the crime (a great Tony Shalhoub) is not at all likeable.
Ed Harris plays the detective and he does tend to lend class to any character he plays.
The very sexy Israeli model Bar Paly plays the stripper Sorina.
She is only marginally dumber than the musclebound lead three.
Watching her get duped is one of the comedy highlights of the film.
Her final scene in particular finds the character in head-slappingly dense form.
And that is the fun in this movie- you get to watch very dumb people do very dumb things.
I loved the scene in which Wahlberg and Mackie try to return a cheap chainsaw that has evidence of the botched body dismemberment all through its cheap metal teeth.
 |
| Casting is uniformly excellent - Ken Jeong and Ed Harris |
If it falters it will send the wrong signal to Michael Bay that he is better off sticking to the Transformers and the overblown nonsense that most of his movies of late have been.
He shows with "Pain & Gain" that he still has the ability to make good movies that entertain with more than just the best special effects that money can buy.
I really enjoyed this film and I loved watching Dwayne Johnson throw all caution to the wind to play a deeply flawed man doing some outrageously illegal, immoral and ill-advised things.
Instead of pondering what might have been had this been treated with a more satirical eye by a more 'serious' director I prefer to just wallow in Bay's take.
It is very dumb people doing very dumb things.
Watching these morons spiral further and further out of control is a great way to spend two hours.
It is a mistake to think that "Pain & Gain" as a movie is dumb- it isn't.
It knows exactly what it is doing from the terrific casting choices to the score to the editing and yes- the direction.
It's a different Michael Bay movie and that in itself almost makes it a must see.
| Rated | R18 for violence, profanity, brief nudity, drug use, language and.... dildos |
| Running Time: | 130 minutes (2hrs, 1min without end credits - but worth staying for them) |
| Starring: |
| Mark Wahlberg | --- Daniel Lugo |
| Dwayne Johnson | --- Paul Doyle |
| Anthony Mackie | --- Adrian Doorbal |
| Tony Shalhoub | --- Victor Kershaw |
| Rebel Wilson | --- Robin Peck |
| Bar Paly | --- Sorina Luminata |
| Ed Harris | --- Ed DuBois |
| Rob Corddry | --- John Mese |
| Ken Jeong | --- Johnny Wu |
| Michael Rispoli | --- Frank Giga |
| Emily Rutherford | --- Cissy DuBois |
| Larry Hankin | --- Pastor Randy |
| Peter Stormare | --- Dr Bjornson |
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