by Joseph Rossi
Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain is a big, brutal, mess of a movie. It’s also the director’s best attempt at filmmaking since…well ever. Usually a helmer of big, silly, summer tentpoles, this is Bay slumming it. Working from a clever script by the writers of The Life and Death of Peter Sellers and the first Captain America, Bay brings his usual visual panache and slow motion fetish to this modestly budgeted flick.
Sick of living the poor life, personal trainers Danny Lugo (Mark Walberg) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) concoct a scheme to kidnap and extort rich, selfish businessman Victor Kershaw (a fantastically slimy Tony Shalhoub) through torture. They enlist ex con Paul Doyle (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and get Kershaw to sign over his wealth. Of course things aren’t as easy as that. Things go wrong, laughably wrong, due to the fact that these three aren’t the smartest criminals in Miami. But the laughs start to diminish when plot gets a little queasy.
The film is based on true events that occurred in Florida in the 1990’s. Two actual down on their luck bodybuilders were involved the extortion, torture and death of several innocent people. What Bay and his team have done is turn that serious story into a dark comedy of sorts. We laugh, not believing these idiots are actually this dense. We cringe at the lengths that they will go to cover their tracks and collect. Part of me thought this would’ve made an excellent Coen Brothers movie; a companion piece to Fargo, which shares the similar idea of what would desperate people do to get an extra buck in life. But the Coen’s Bay is not and it shows. Where they would use subtlety, Bay goes for the bombast. Even working with a low budget like this, Bay uses his tricks and style to plant us deep in the grimy and glitzy Miami culture. His camera pivots around the human form, male and female, as if it were a commercial for a brand new Ferrari. Bay is a showman; his purpose is to titillate, to burn images into our retinas so we don’t forget them when we leave the theatre.
This isn’t a straight up comedy. This is a dark attempt to satirize the American dream. These people, likeable as they are, are horrible. I know the trailers suggest a fun time with The Rock and Marky-Mark but audiences should know that it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye – or an arm. Well, you gotta see it to believe it.
