What happens when three muscle bound stupidos plan a kidnapping??? A surprisingly entertaining movie about a true event is what happens! Read our review to find out more!!!
Moneybags director Michael
Bay returns to pre-Transformers form with Pain & Gain, the true story of
three body builders who came up with a half-brained scheme in the ‘90s to
kidnap a rich douchebag and take his money.
Mark Wahlberg plays the lead
instigator as stuck-in-a-rut gym instructor Daniel Lugo. Tired of serving people who have everything
he wants, money, women, respect, he decides to kidnap one of his clients with
the help of fellow meathead Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and the recently
out of prison Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson).
Between the three of them
they have about half a brain cell and that’s what makes this such a surprisingly
enjoyable ride. Imagine a person who
perhaps knows a few buzzwords, which, if you didn’t converse further, would
suggest the guy is smart. Now imagine
you do actually talk to this guy and delve further, then you slowly see his
eyes glaze over as it dawns on you that the guy doesn’t actually know anything;
well that’s Daniel Lugo for you. Worse
still is that uber-meathead Paul Doyle thinks Lugo is a criminal genius. The results are pretty damn funny, often
gruesome, but funny nonetheless.
It’s nice to see Bay
returning to more adult themes but this is still a far cry from Bay classics
such as Bad Boys 1 & 2 as well as the now seminal The Rock (not starring
Dwayne Johnson). Although perhaps fresh
when compared to a lot of the other titles in theatres right now, compared to
some of Bay’s own previous works, it does feel like we’re simply revisiting old
ground. There’s one scene featuring a
rotating camera going through a crack in the wall into another room and back
round into the original room. This
spinning camera keeps moving as the scene unfolds, but this is exactly the same
as what Bay did in Bad Boys 2 during one of the gunfights leaving me with a significant
‘been there – done that’ kind of feeling.
What makes this movie
worthwhile, surprisingly for a Bay movie, is the plot and the performances of the
leads. The true story setting means that
things are never fully predictable, it’s not the usual Hollywood fare where
things end all happy and goody goody for our anti-heroes. No sir, this is a much more grizzly
experience.
I loved Dwayne as the
pea-brained muscle bound hulk who initially objects to everything but in the
end it’s mostly thanks to him that things go from bad to worse.
Wahlberg injects just enough angst and
desperation into his stupid-but-thinks-he’s-smart character for us to be able
to empathize with him but simultaneously laugh at him when things go south.
It’s obvious that no one’s
really taking anything seriously making this movie and it’s nice to see the
actors not being afraid to make fun of themselves as it really comes through in
their performances. Clearly they all had
a lot of fun as following this movie Bay signed up Wahlberg to replace Shia LaBeouf
to lead the next Transformers movie.
I have no idea how true to
life the events portrayed in this are but who cares? I did some googling and there was enough
truth in this to keep me happy.
You could do much worse than
Pain & Gain. Admittedly it has
limited replay value but it’s a nice little black comedy to pass a couple of
hours and welcome respite from the CGI heavy movies we’re all used to (mostly from Bay) these
days.
Check it out!
Rating 3.5 out of 5
Bobby
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