Pain and gain review

Title- Pain and Gain

Director- Michael Bay

Cast- Dwayne Johnson

         Mark Wahlberg

         Anthony Mackie

         Rebel Wilson

Certificate- 15

Run time- 2hrs 9mins

Review

Michael Bays first film since his eccentric Transformers films tells the true story of Daniel Lugo; a bodybuilder from Miami who decided he had had enough of being stepped on by people richer than him, and decides to kidnap and steal from these people along with two others who wanted to help.

This definitely has a similar feel to the first Bad Boys film in the sense of the scenery and directorial style, as Bay likes to use cityscapes and shots of sunrises/sets over a city which occur numerous times in all his films and especially in this and Bad Boys. Thats not to say that the cinematography is bad as it is one of the high points of this film. The cinematography is brilliant and really shows the tone of a situation and displays Bays directorial ability allowing people to forget about his last three pieces.

The marketing for Pain and Gain had made this film seem like more of a comedy, which is correct and the humour is off-key and quite dark, yet definitely surprisingly funny. Despite this, it is the more dramatic or thrilling scenes that steal the show, as it is here where the acting comes into play and the great performances allow the tone to change from humorous to quite dark. Due to this film being about kidnapping the audience would come to expect the film to be dark, but this verges on uncomfortable to watch at some point. This isn't necessarily due to the content on screen other than the subject matter behind the content on screen.

My main criticism with this is the idiocy of the characters, which make you think that this couldn't possibly be a true story to the extent that Bay has to add a little title card during the ludicrous and rather ridiculous third act stating "this is still a true story", not surprisingly as things easily get out of hand and situations become worse and worse. This movie really plays by the stereotypes of the stronger being dumber and the smaller being smarter, as these hapless musketeers get into various escapades and situations that would make the thieves from the first two home alone films look like a pair of genii.

Despite all of this Pain and Gain has some good moments and is really quite memorable, but falls under its own incoherent plot and stupendously ridiculous characters. Despite this, it is a rather grotesque and unworthy film due to the sheer darkness of the situations faced by these equally horrible idiots.

5/10