Pain & Gain
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie
Director: Michael Bay
Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) just wants to enjoy the American Dream for him that means conspiring with fellow Sun Gym trainer/Member Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) to kidnap Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), torture him for a month and transfer everything he owns into their names allowing them to finally live the good life. Lugo and boys are so incompetent that it takes multiple attempts to just abduct Kershaw let alone successfully take what his is and make it theirs. When the money sponge has finally run dry the bumbling criminals can’t even successfully dispose of Kershaw. The story is so outrageous that Miami PD doesn’t believe it; essentially allowing the Sun Gym Gang to pull off a perfect crime. Unable to let go of the fact that his entire life has been ruined Kershaw hires Ed Dubois (Ed Harris) a retired Private Eye to help him get what’s his back and stop them from committing even more crimes.
The first thing of note is that Pain & Gain is based on a true story written by Pete Collins as featured in the Miami New Times, for the real story go click here
Secondly there is only one person who will probably not enjoy the film, that being Mark Schilling whom the character Victor Kershaw is based on. By all accounts the guy was not nearly as reprehensible as Shalhoub’s portrayal yet Bay and crew also fail to neglect that Schilling was sent to federal prison for Medicare Fraud.
Essentially where the film differs from reality is the character of Paul Doyle as portrayed by Dwayne Johnson; Doyle is an amalgamation of multiple people involved in the crimes. There were more than three players in the Sun Gym Gang, while wives and children are completely omitted. Some small details were changed for story/dramatic purposes, like who committed one of the murders; overall the bones of the story are pretty well laid out. Interestingly enough the parts that most would assume were embellished for comedic purposes are actually toned down quite a bit. The Sun Gym gang was not exactly an operation of criminal genius’ they were a group of people who couldn’t get things right and required multiple attempts resulting in an overabundance of screw ups.
Bay delivers everything you expect in a bay film the low camera circling around the protagonists in slow motion. The frenetic editing, the loud music, the overall amped up feeling that is typical of a Bay film is all here, add to that an actual plot and This is Bay at his finest. Pain & Gain is a twisted combination of dark humor and true crime. It is laugh out loud funny. Bay is able to pull out the strongest performance Dwayne Johnson has ever delivered, able to show a vulnerability while simultaneously flexing his comedic muscles. A coked out, Jesus loving Dwayne is a sight to behold. Wahlberg as Lugo delivers his most charismatic performance in years, Ever since the Departed it seems as if Wahlberg has been sleepwalking, Here is present and not just going through the motions. Lugo is in his wheel house there is something darkly comic about a guy who just needs to get a quick set of curls in to figure out what to do with a dead body.
For Once the less than subtle touch of Bay is perfectly married to the material. A group of charismatic yet less than bright Bodybuilders, Fast Cars, Strip Clubs and Murder all come together to deliver the most original crime story in Memory. You can’t make this stuff up,
GRADE-92
