There’s something of a trend that has developed in the world of movies this year, one that takes on the idea of the American dream and attempts to dissect what makes it tick, twist it and put it up on-screen in striking fashion. Harmony Korine and his Spring Breakers pretty much hit the nail on the head in all its blissful shamelessness while Sofia Coppola’s repetitive and rather dull The Bling Ring missed the mark.
Unfortunately the latest in that trend, Pain & Gain, falls on the wrong side of the fence alongside Coppola’s b(l)and of celebrity house robbers. Although it could never be called dull, Michael Bay’s brash and in-your-face tale of bodybuilders biting off more than they can chew squanders almost all of its potential thanks to the director’s self-indulgent and casually misogynistic sensibilities.
Based on an “outrageous” true story taken from a series of magazine articles, Pain & Gain centres on bodybuilder Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) who has worked his way up the ranks in a Miami gym. He dreams of living the American dream and the lifestyle of fast cars, big houses and supermodel girlfriends. He then comes up with a plan to, with the help of fellow bodybuilders Paul (Dwayne Johnson) and Adrian (Anthony Mackie), kidnap and extort rich crooked businessman Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub). However, when their plan goes horribly wrong the three of them are left trying to hold onto what they’ve achieved without being caught.
You can see what Bay was trying to do with Pain & Gain. First of all he’s doing something a little bit different to what’s been known for at least as of late. This is more Bad Boys than it is Transformers, at least in its cops and criminals framework (this time we’re on the latter side), but something altogether less obsessed with action scene after action scene. Secondly it’s an attempt at tackling the idea of the American dream and what that means in today’s world where the lifestyles of the rich and the famous seems to be the ultimate aspiration for millions worldwide.
And while the attempt must be commended it’s in the execution that Bay’s latest film fails. Is it supposed to be clever or funny? The heightened style – bright colours, repetitive use of slow-mo, obnoxious low camera angles and obsession with icky violence, to name but a few things – just comes across as immature. Of course being over-the-top is part of the point but the crude and blunt approach wastes potential in favour of being the loudest one in the room. It’s the movie equivalent of a gym trainer shouting in your face to push yourself harder for two hours.
Luckily Bay has made some wise casting decisions. Wahlberg has really committed to the lead role of Daniel, not just in a physical sense i.e. his bodybuilder physique but in how he dives into the mindset of the role and really gets across the naive desperation the character has for wanting everything and not really caring (or rather, knowing) how he gets it. Mackie embraces the absurdity, too, with a character that seems content to follow any orders (including dressing up in a green ninja costume to kidnap somebody) as long as it achieves their goal. And Johnson is perhaps the highlight as an ex-convict and born again Christian, providing any of the film’s absurd comic moments that happen to work (and it’s not that many), proving he’s more than just a muscled action star even as he looks bigger than he’s ever been.
The likes of Tony Shalhoub as the poor guy kidnapped by the bodybuilding trio (who wouldn’t be out of place in a Coen bros. farce) and Ed Harris as a retired private detective bring dramatic weight to the proceedings though they’re somewhat undeserved by a script that seems obsessed with trivialising brutal violence and leering at any women characters who happen to wander on-screen in a bikini; it’d be hard not to feel sorry for Rebel Wilson and the dubious, paper-thin role she gets here.
The cast merely make Bay’s latest film bearable rather than completely saving it. While we can all be thankful that summer 2013 went by without us having to suffer yet another Transformers movie (although we won’t be able to say that about next year, unfortunately), what we get in its place is every bit as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face. Pain & Gain is a loud, brazen, frequently irritating experience not just because of the over-stylised “Bayisms” that not so much punctuate the film as completely smother it but because of how that style chokes the life out of what otherwise might have been an interesting “so ridiculous it has to be true” crime story.
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