Pain & Gain Reviews

I am colombian and i could say that Kershaw does not represent at all the idiocincrasy of colombian country and people.
Aside from that is also a very bad movie... 3/10

Well, after directing some of the biggest and dumbest blockbusters ever, Michael Bay decided to take a break and, this time, he went for something cheaper but still pretty dumb but guess what? I thought it was not bad at all. Indeed, basically, it was dealing with a really ridiculous story and I thought that Bay managed to get the right tone in his very first comedy. I mean, when you think about it, it was actually a pretty smart move to go for such a preposterous tale because, let's face it, he would never have been able to direct a subtle comedy like 'Groundhog Day' for example. Concerning the cast, Mark Wahlberg managed to make his character the most entertaining one. On the other hand, Dwayne Johnson's character was not bad but he didn't completely worked as the stretch between a criminal massive drug addict and a new-born christian was just too big. Anthony Mackie had eventually the least compelling character of the trio and I won't mention Ed Harris who was completely underused here. Even so, I thought it was a fairly entertaining story but eventually, since those characters were all so stupid or rather unlikable, you never really care much about them or what they are going through. Anyway, even if it was nothing really amazing, it must be one of the best movies delivered by Michael Bay in quite some years which isn't much, I'll admit it, but I still think it is worth a look, especially if you have weak spot for this director. 

For the record, i just want to point out that making a comedy movie about a real murder is very inappropriate and Michael Bay is an ass**le for doing it, that being said, i also want to point out that Paramount didn't even pay a dime to the actual survivor Marc Schiller, which is usually not the case for movies based on true stories, they tend to support the actual guy, and in most cases, they tend to use him in interviews to further promote the movie, and these crimes didn't happened along time ago, which means, the family of the victims still alive and can see this comedy which makes the producers even more ass**les.

It's a story about three meat heads, steroids junkies, two of them with a criminal record, and they go to the sun gym in Miami, effected by their reality and wanting to live the american dream, they came up with a plan, which is kidnapping a rich guy, take everything he owns, and release him drugged so he wouldn't know what happened, they set their site on an accountant who goes to the gym, who also have a record of scamming, which makes it the perfect target, because he wouldn't go the authority if things happen to him.

After kidnapping him, he identify one of them, so after so many days torturing him, they get all the signatures they wanted, then decide to kill him, so they ran him over by their car, and because they were so amateur and stupid, they didn't check if he was dead, but that didn't effect them because the authority didn't believe Victor Kershaw (the alternate name of the actual guy), he was drunk, and they thought that he made a car accident, plus no-one reported that he was missing.

As bad as all this look, the reality is that the movie was disturbingly accurate, they actually dressed like a Ninja and green bug when they kidnapped him in-front of his restaurant, they used code names like "eagle's nest" and the first attempt of kidnapping him, the one that failed, they were running in his yard, covering themselves with piece of cloth and yelling, "mission abort", so it may all sound so stupid in the movie (Michael Bay comedy style) but it actually happened, they actually lived in his house and used his cars, but after they ran out of the money, they decide to re-do it again, with a guy and his wife that owns a sex phone business, this time they accidentally kill them both and they get arrested, they decide to dismember the bodies and dispose them in barrels in the lake, and the scene when they go to home depot to buy a chainsaw, and then they use it and it breaks, they actually returned it to the store after using it, which is the reason i said that this movie was disturbingly accurate.

The reason why this movie is a guilty pleasure to me, because those guys where so stupid and so amateur, and the movie was so bizarre and hard to believe that you forget that it based on a true story and you starts enjoying it for what it is, and the writing was very creative, some one liners were absolutely hilarious, Daniel Lugo (played by Mark Wahlberg) tells John Mese "star 69" after Victor Kershaw hangs the phone on them, so John Mese says "you want me to have sex with him?", and there were so many scenes that was really funny, even the editing, which tells you, "the perfect performance", "the weakest link", "the new recruit", which was basically, an introduction to characters, even further, Daniel Lugo was unintentionally hilarious, with lines like "i'm a doer", and "i have no sympathy to fat people, not only it's disgusting, it's unpatriotic", and the fact that he actually thought that he was going to make america a better place.

The performances were awesome, and all over your face, the characters were very well written and very well mixed together, and overall, it was very enjoyable movie, even the awkward scenes had me laughing all the way, and to confirm that this is an accurate movie, watch a documentary called "Muscles and Mayhem" which is based on the actual crimes, the only way the movie got it wrong, when they kidnap Victor Kershaw, there were more people involved, but they didn't help the three all the way, they just helped them do the kidnapping, also Paul Doyle (played by Dwayne Johnson) wasn't buff at all, he was skinny white dude, and the death sentence scene, the movie shows you that Adrian Doorbal cried when hearing the sentence, and Daniel Lugo didn't care, but it actually the other way around.

Overall, hilarious, unfortunate movie, with great performances, great atmosphere and funny characters, and might be the only movie by Michael Bay that i actually like, even though, he was an ass**le who made us root for the bad guys, it's still a funny movie, i'm sorry.

Several media properties compare and contrast details shown in the film and actual events. As David Haglund and Forrest Wickman wrote in blog culture slate, "Browbeat": "The film more or less adheres to a very general outline provided by the length of the novella, of three parts, a number very detailed written by Pete Collins and published in the Miami new Times, more than a decade, it is not surprising that many details, and a number of important characters are removed from the film, and a lot of new fictional details.

Here are a number of differences between the film and actual events:

The film portrays the Sun Gym gang as consisting of three main members (Daniel Lugo, Adrian Noel Doorbal and Paul Doyle) and two accomplices [John Mese (the owner of Sun Gym and Miami Shores6 counter that notarized documents Kershaw - actually, Marc Schiller - Lugo) and Luminita Sorina stripper (based on Sabina Petrescu), who recruited Lugo - said - to serve as a "honey pot" of the band]. In fact, the band was bigger, Doyle's character is a composite of several real people who were not represented in the film as Carl Weekes, Delgado and Jorge Mario Sanchez, and real-life girlfriend of Doorbal (Cindy Etheridge ) that helped pull scrub blood on the walls of condominiums Doorbal after Doorbal had dismembered bodies of Griga and Furton. In addition, unlike Sorina, in the movie passes Doyle Lugo, Lugo Sabina and stayed together as a couple and committed, and ran together to the Bahamas (with parents of Lugo) .7 8 players in real life also 0.9: the events of the Miami New Times article, "cast of characters Box" detailed

In the film, Victor Kershaw says he was born in Bogotá, Colombia. His real-life counterpart, Marc Schiller, born in Argentina.10

Schiller and Lugo not become friends with each other; Schiller actually distrusted Lugo. It was Delgado (who worked for Schiller, as the wife of Delgado), who befriended Lugo and headed to Schiller, and was in the store Delgado (not Schiller), where the kidnappers held and tortured Schiller during a month, whereas before attempting to extort and to matarlo.8

Sabina Elena Petrescu (portrayed on screen as Sorina Luminita Bar Paly), was actually a golden center stage solid stripper. It was once Miss Romania and former model Penthouse.6

In the film, Victor Kershaw eyes closed recognizes Lugo for his colony. Actually, Marc Schiller recognized his voice

From the director, Michael Bay, who gave many mega blockbusters. Like the movie 'Bernie' it was also based on the true story which cinematically presented as a crime-comedy. 'Pain & Gain' centers around the three Boston bodybuilders who commits a series of crimes.

Like everybody else, these three bodybuilder wants to live the American dream. Since they are poor, they plan together to abduct a rich man and fetch some money. But it won't go according to their plan, somehow they pull the incident back into their control. Now they are rich, but past begins to haunt their happy and what happens then after to them is the rest.

I liked Dwayne Johnson's role, kinda cool, made all the difference to the story. Mark Wahlberg role as well, which was aggressive and energetic. But the third character was quite moderate other than in romance related scenes. There are few errors on technical aspects like crews are clearly visible in many scenes through the glass. Overall a good movie with a racy pace and very much enjoyable.

7.5/10

"We snatch him, we grab him, signs a few signatures, we give him a protein shake! He doesn't even know what happened! I watched a lot of movies Paul, I know what I'm doing!"

After years of gargantuan big-budget blockbusters, 2013's Pain & Gain was designed for Michael Bay to dial down his hyperbolic moviemaking tendencies and challenge himself by creating a low-budget character piece. Produced for a minuscule $26 million, it was a brilliant opportunity for Bay to flex whatever genuine directorial chops he possesses, but instead, the movie only serves to remind us yet again of Bay's inherent shortcomings. Rather than an intelligent drama or a comedic hoot, Pain & Gain is caught somewhere in between, resulting in a mean-spirited, repugnant mess that's a chore to sit through. There are no robots here, but Bay's visual diarrhoea is all over the screen - the film is every bit as obnoxious and painfully overlong as his Transformers movies. This is not progress.

Set in Miami in the 1990s, Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is a convicted felon fresh out of prison who turns to personal training and bodybuilding to get his life back on track. Feeling unfulfilled, he attends a self-help seminar featuring infomercial guru Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), which motivates him to take action. Recruiting the help of co-worker Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and born-again heavy Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), Lugo sets his sights on arrogant millionaire Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a new client of Lugo's at the gym. The trio of would-be crooks kidnap Kershaw, holding him for torture in a warehouse to force the millionaire to sign over his wealth to them. Although their plan is successful and the meatheads begin living the good life of wealth, power and comfort, Kershaw survives the incident, enlisting the help of grizzled private detective Ed (Ed Harris) to take down the men who ruined his life.

Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Captain America: The First Avenger), Pain & Gain plays out in an interesting fashion, with the film allowing all of the main players to deliver narration at some point. The POV baton is consistently passed around, giving us a window into everybody's psyches and inner thoughts as the proceedings unfold. It's a blatant disregard for basic principles of filmmaking, but it's a creative subversion of the usual narrative rules, and it's one of a handful of things that actually work. Unfortunately, the film is murdered by its misjudged pacing; it takes forever to get anywhere, as Bay dwells on every last detail of every character and every action. It's unnecessarily extended and full of superfluous scenes, making this a leaden experience in need of a more judicious editor. Bay has come so far in his career that he ostensibly has complete creative freedom, which is a death knell for Pain & Gain. Clocking in at over two hours, it's at least thirty or forty minutes longer than it needs to be, rendering this a truly punishing viewing experience.

Pain & Gain wears its "based on a true story" label like a badge of honour, with Bay emphasising it at every opportunity. However, the picture makes light heart of what's, in fact, a despicable story; in real life, the main players were pure scumbags who tortured people, destroyed lives, murdered, lied, extorted and kidnapped. Depicting Lugo and Doorbal in a seemingly sympathetic light is a huge error. Admittedly, Bay was apparently aiming for a dark comedy here, which would have been tolerable if only it were done well. Alas, Bay cannot do comedy properly, as evidenced in the Transformers movies. The approach, therefore, is seldom effective. Pain & Gain might have succeeded if it was a powerful drama or a good black comedy, but instead, it's a confusing hodgepodge of unsuccessful humour and ham-fisted drama, demonstrating that Bay simply lacks the intelligence, wit and nuance to do anything profound or insightful. The film is full of his trademark sensibilities. Hence, instead of subtlety or tastefulness, Pain & Gain is obnoxious and in-your-face, representing yet another example of his engorged creative chutzpah.

Bay definitely makes the most of the scant budget, even forgoing a proper director's salary to keep costs low to get the movie made. It's an impressive move for the filmmaker, who clearly wanted to get in touch with his more earthbound side. No matter its flaws, Pain & Gain is an attractively-produced flick with hyper-stylised, colourful cinematography that's thankfully low on shaky-cam. Moreover, the score by Steve Jablonsky is spot-on, representing the only element of the production with a degree of gravitas. Performances, meanwhile, are reasonable, with the actors all acquitting themselves well with the material. Johnson is probably the standout, showing that he has decent acting chops and is willing to poke fun at his tough-guy persona. Also worth mentioning is Australian actress Rebel Wilson, who's criminally underused and gives the film its only effective comedic moments.

If executed well, all of Pain & Gain's inherent script flaws - its humorous approach that comes off in hugely bad taste, its jarring structure, its excessive runtime - could have been forgiven. Michael Bay, however, was not the right man for the job. While it's promising to see Bay tackle a character-oriented film, Pain & Gain devolves into a disgustingly juvenile, uninvolving exercise in self-indulgence. The lack of taste is astonishing here. Pain & Gain is all pain, and you gain absolutely nothing from it.

3.7/10

When Michael Bay’s name is plastered all over a film we have come to expect big explosions, terrible plot structure and very minimal performances from the main actors. Pain and Gain is entirely different from the rest of Bay’s body of work, but still inhabits some of his old tendencies, including the terrible plot structure that never quite allows this film to even make one bit of logical sense.

Daniel Lugo is a fitness nut, who wants want everyone else has, a big house and fast car. He decides that the American dream is his for the taking, and a long with two friends set out to secure the assets of a known criminal. As they get started, the three friends are in over the heads from the moment it begins and they are forced to go with the flow or face losing the one thing they have worked hard for, which is the American dream.

The first act of this movie made logical sense. We had Daniel Lugo unhappy with this life had been living, so he sets out to change that. Cool, typical Hollywood story about wanting more then one deserves. The first act is filled with exactly what every other story of this nature is filled with, good looking men and women, fast cars, fancy houses, fancy clubs and big money. Then the actual movie begins, and it transcends into jokes about erectile dysfunction, cocaine addiction and racial issue. Then it just becomes a film that wants to be so over the top it needs to remind you that it is still in fact based off a true story. How much of this was true, and was as comical as the film presented it is probably about 10 per cent of what actually happened in real life. This film was really just scoff worthy, because when you thought there had been enough jokes about Adrians penis not working properly they dropped another one, and another one and another one. I think you get my point; it wasn’t very hard for them to be juvenile as much as possible.

Bring in two of the most well known big men currently working and you have yourself a recipe for an interesting cast. Mark Wahlberg does nothing as the lead actor in this film, it was far from a memorable performance from him. I’ve seen Anthony Mackie show his talent before and he did so on several occasions in this film, but really the lone bright spot was the performance from Dwayne Johnson. He actually gave a layered performance, allowing himself to appear vulnerable and emotional instead of just the rough and tough action star he usually is. Johnson is actually the scene stealer in this film, right from the early going.

Other then when Johnson was able to steal the scene, it fell flat with its airhead characters and brainy schemes to make these guys look and adequately appear to be complete imbeciles. Nothing about this film feels genuine and authentic, it’s a mixture of the same comedy, same stupidity and same mediocre acting we have come to expect from a film of this nature. Pain and Gain is not the good film it could have been, simply because it opts for quantity of quality. It opts to be that film that goes to all lengths to re-iterate how messed up these events are, but it never really captures the heart of the story. The American dream can be the root of all evil, which should have been the focal point of the film, not a parade of buffoonery that should best be left to the circus.

Pain and Gain is certainly fair from the best film of 2013, perhaps up their with Spring Breakers for the most absurd plot and weird visuals, but never amounts to much except big men becoming even bigger.