I watched Pain & Gain. I don’t know why I watched Pain & Gain but I did. I watched Pain & Gain. My favourite critic, Mark Kermode, ranked it as
his least favourite film of 2013 and I dislike the entire back catalogue of
director Michael Bay. But still I watched Pain & Gain. And do you know what?
It isn’t the worst film ever made. I don’t even think it’s the worst film of
2013. It isn’t however a very good film. It’s Pain & Gain. Michael
Bay’s Pain & Gain.
Based on true events, something
which the film ‘amusingly’ reminds the audience of after a particularly
unbelievable scene, Pain & Gain
is the story of body building jackass personal trainer Daniel Lugo (Mark
Wahlberg) who in 1994-5 along with two accomplices, successfully kidnapped and
extorted a Miami based businessman, taking all his money and possessions. After
months of living the high life, the trio decided to try their hand at a second
kidnapping but by this time the police were on their trail.
The movie has shades of Bay’s Bad Boys films, sharing a setting, sun
drenched colour palate and sense of cheeky mischief. The problem is that there
isn’t much cheekiness about the criminal trio or their crimes. The gang
committed horrific acts for which the majority of them showed no sign of remorse.
The central characters aren’t a couple of wisecracking cops, they’re criminals.
Idiot criminals. Bay’s mistake, I’ll rephrase. His biggest mistake, is to
attempt to get the audience on the side of the characters. Perhaps this worked
with the target audience but I’m a decade and a few IQ points away from that
audience and it simply doesn’t work. The film comes closest to this aim through
the Jesus loving ex-con Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson). Doyle appears to be on the
path to forgiveness before falling in with Lugo and despite attempts to remain pure,
struggles against the tide of criminality.
Another problem with the movie is
that for all the action and criminality, it’s really boring. The film is over
two hours long and has no business in extending past an hour and forty minutes.
If it was stripped back to its constituent parts it has the makings of an
interesting story but Bay fills it with slow-mo shots inside strip clubs and
numerous unnecessary gym scenes. We get that the guys are into fitness and
muscles, that much is evident. Spending what feels like an aeon inside the gym
with them is less enjoyable than being in my own gym.
The direction wavers wildly
between slick and amateurish like an out of control hose pipe being danced
around by bikini clad models. Interestingly I think I might have actually got
that image from the movie. Occasionally Michael Bay
shows how adept he is with a camera and as much as I dislike his films, he is
capable of capturing attractive images, albeit aided by bare flesh and garish
colours. Interspersed between these are cheap looking shots which are created
by strapping lower quality cameras to characters and cars in a similar way to
the cinematography found in Breaking Bad.
The problem is though that the rest of the film is so bright and crisp that
these sequences look like they were shot with £50 cameras in low light
conditions. They’re out of place and don’t fit with the rest of the movie or
indeed its inspirational, big and bold themes.
There are further issues which
are just plain dumb. For a film about stupid people, there is plenty of
unintentional stupidity on screen. The film is set in the mid 90s yet I spotted
an X-Box 360 controller, rabbit vibrator and numerous cars, all of which were
invented/introduced long after the time period. Additionally I’m pretty sure
the movie uses a picture of Prague to represent Bucharest. The fact that
I noticed all of this shows you how into the film I was. The movie makes
further blunders in tone. The events depicted are real. They were and are real
crimes. To attempt to create humour in the ways that the film does feels rather
disrespectful and not only that but they aren’t even funny. I didn’t laugh once
during the 129 minutes and this is despite dozens of jokes, gags and ‘humorous’
instances. By humorous I mean things like barbecuing people’s hands passing
attractive women around like a DVD. The ridiculousness of the characters and their brazen attitude should provide some laughs but crime and misogyny get in the way.
Mark Wahlberg shows flashes of
his comic talent but generally fails to raise a smile. His bulk is impressive
and he has a decent stab at a couple of accents. Dwayne Johnson actually fairs
ok and I don’t think he did anything to harm himself in the movie. He even
showed a little range. Anthony Mackie is a bit forgettable and Ed Harris gives
glimpses of his talent but is wasted. Bar Paly is used as little more than
something to give teenage boys erections and Tony Shalhoub plays an unfortunate
stereotype. Rebel Wilson and Ken Jeong also pop up briefly but neither provides
much entertainment besides Wilson’s
licking her lips at the thought of a black penis.
Overall the movie isn’t as bad as
I expected it to be and I didn’t actively dislike it. I found it unnecessarily
offensive and overtly dull though. It’s too long and isn’t funny. It’s poorly
made and makes ill use of an interesting story. It's vulgar and violent but unlike Scorsese, Bay makes these traits that halt the enjoyment of his films rather than add to them. It's immature and there are attempts at satire
but leaving Michael
Bay in charge of satire
is about as recommendable as leaving Ian Hislop in charge of a Transformers movie. Actually, I’d be
more inclined to watch that than another film from Bay.
4/10
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