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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.
6/10
