Pain and Gain: Movie Review

Pain and Gain: Movie Review

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Tony Shalhoub, Antony Mackie, Rebel Wilson, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry
Director: Michael Bay

A Michael Bay movie with only one explosion and shot for just $25 million?

Has the Bay-meister gone arthouse?

In among the body-conscious world of Miami, Mark Wahlberg plays bodybuilder Daniel Lugo, a believer in the American dream, but not in the reality of working towards it. After taking on a rich new client, Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), Lugo concocts a scheme to kidnap him and get him to sign over all his wealth and wordly possessions, believing he's entitled to it.

Lugo co-opts fellow gym buddy, Adrian (Anthony Mackie) a steroid riddled impotent into helping - and the final link of Dwayne Johnson's Paul Doyle, a former convict who's discovered religion and is trying to go straight - but faces temptation left, right and centre.

But Lugo's plan doesn't quite go as expected...and Ed Harris' PI, Ed DuBois is called in to track the group down.

Pain and Gain is a rather odd beast.

Stylish rather than something with substance, it's an odd mix of the garish world of Miami with the ineptitude of three wannabe criminals whose ideas are executed laughably. There's a kernel of a sermon here about the American dream and how to aspire for it rather than simply to take it, but it's lost midway through.

Worst of all, the story goes for black comedy, but the reality of what happened (the film opens with a disclaimer that "Unfortunately, this is a true story") is actually quite horrific and you're left feeling unsure whether it's the right choice of material for a film in the first place, mixing in queasy laughs with some horrific situations in the sun soaked world of Miami with its glistening and perfectly sculpted bodies.

Wahlberg commits fully to the role as does Johnson (who spectacularly goes off the rails) but none of them are empathetic or sympathetic characters; even the kidnapped Kershaw is a beast to his employees and never really fully deserving of our care or time. A real lack of compassion is fatal in a story like this.

The end result is that Michael Bay's concocted something that feels an unusual film - potentially torn from the lurid pulpy crime novels world, it doesn't quite work on the screen and which descends into hysterically OTT violence as it reaches its climax. Feeling wildly uneven and tonally a bit up and down, the film hits some stylish highs and can't sustain the initial satirical tone it was aiming for. Gallows humour there may be, but some of it just doesn't sit right as it unspools.

Over-long and flawed, this piece ends up being a little more about the pain, rather than the gain.

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