Last updated on May 30, 2014
Pain and Gain is one of the strangest, most experimental films that I’ve seen in quite a while. A disclaimer before I begin: if you’re a Christian, I’m not exactly sure if I would recommend this to you. Black comedies often fit into that particular mold, what with the morbid laughter at absurd (and sometimes disturbing) events. Proceed and watch at your own risk!
There’s one sticking point that will make most people dismiss this film from the outset: Michael Bay. Most people don’t give Bay much credit, likening him to some kind of buffoon who simply makes things explode and cracks tons of frat-boy level jokes to make millions. Somehow, everyone of his films – even this one – manages to make several times its operating budget, and we still lament his detrimental effects on society.
They would rather not see the craft and the deft editorial sense that makes all those action scenes make sense(at least, as much sense as giant robot combat can be), and how he turns otherwise boring scripts into entertaining films. Heck, an R-rated movie making over three times its production budget is certainly nothing to sneeze at!
Pain and Gain, in that sense, departs a bit from his more action-oriented films and back to where he got his film career – Bad Boys. Yes, Bad Boys remains an action film, but it’s not as if the whole movie consists of unintelligible explosions and shooting -there’s an actual plot to follow and funny lines to boot. I don’t even like Will Smith all that much, and he plays a rather good buddy cop person (with Martin Lawrence…I guess).
Unfortunately, this film follows the bad guys instead, but the bad guys are, shall we say, rather charmingly dumb. Mark Wahlberg’s gym coach Daniel Lugo has had enough; he wants “The American Dream” at any costs. With a body this ripped, he thinks he deserves all the money in the world, but no one see his potential. One motivational speaker later, it’s time to seize that dream through hard work and determination.
Of course, we’re talking about idiots here, so “earning” is more like “kidnapping a sandwich shop owner and taking all of his money through a month’s worth of extortion, torture, and attempted murder”. How Wahlberg enlists two other meatheads is part of the fun, and all of them play their roles equally well as equal parts dumb and menacing. That’s the strange part of Pain and Gain: your main characters turn sympathetic to turly evil in the blink of an eye, and that sort of whiplash throws you off guard. How does Michael Bay produce such a nuanced character study? I honestly couldn’t tell you! I never felt lost, but I always felt a mixture of empathy and disgust throughout the whole experience, which points to a rather effective black comedy. Bay wants you to laugh at them, and it’s not hard to do that sometimes. It goes through a full spectrum of emotions, though.
I believe that the story’s meant to be seen through the eyes of Dwayne Johnson (aka, The Rock’s character). Paul Doyle is a Christian who recently got saved out of prison, and constantly wears “Jesus loves you” shirts in the middle of a hostage/ransom situation. He’s just an honest, sweet, and gullible guy who gets caught up in a world he tried to escape right before this. Johnson really expands his range from “tough guy”, and it’s nice to see him in a change of pace that actually works. First person narration helps establish what everyone thinks about the situation on display, and you could make a fair case that everything’s a bit hyperreal.
Even so, the emotional arc doesn’t overtake the plot details, though, which are surprisingly complicated while not losing a beat. As I said before, Michael Bay conveys information quickly and effectively right under the audience’s ability to perceive it, and it functions even better when relaying exposition in showing rather than telling. I was quite surprised myself!
I mean, the whole plot is insanely complicated at times, and the characters continue to make extremely poor decisions which eventually leads to a double homicide and some death sentences. That isn’t a spoiler; this film’s loosely based on a well-known case nearly fifteen years ago, and while the general plot has been simplified to compensate for the real complexities, true life is stranger than fiction in this case!
Most critics didn’t seem to understand the paradoxical nature of these events – murderers and scumbags, are, in fact, human beings with wants and desired molded by the society that birthed them. Whether via hubris, desperation, or otherwise, people commit crimes both smartly and poorly; this movie just shows us an example of the latter. Who exactly kidnaps a person they know, or moves into their house after taking all their stuff? Further than that, who runs out of money that fast without investing or anything? And lastly, why would you try to do the same thing again? Who thinks the police will let the second one go?
People who think they deserve success more than you, that’s who. And whether or not they’re people you don’t like, their lack of likability isn’t really the issue here. It’s the false values which these body building crazies represent which presents the truly reflective mirror to the audience, and you may not like it. Herein lies a more extreme version of The American Dream without limits, without caring for other people and without a moral code attached to it. And all this from a multi-billionaire director!
I am sure the actual events are substantially LESS funny and more HORRIFIC, but that’s not the point. I will warn you if you want to see this: it will make you laugh at pretty horrible things as things escalate. There’s plenty of decadence and violence to go around, so be forewarned before entering. In that sense, it’s a tepid recommendation if you can stomach all the sin going on, but I clearly enjoyed it regardless. Depends on your constitution, really.
I probably should have mentioned the dismemberment? Nah!
