Pain & Gain

The summer season is just about upon us, and what a better film to start with than Michael Bay's "Pain & Gain". Bay is the king of action films--the 'meat and potatoes' of the summer movie season. Nothing heady here, but out of shear ludicrousity, this one is pure entertainment.

Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is a regular bodybuilder who works at Sun Gym along with his buddy Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie). Sick of living the poor life, Lugo concocts a plan to kidnap Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a regular at the gym who happens to be a rich, spoiled, snotty, crass businessman, so Lugo decides to extort money from him by means of torture. With the help of a recently released criminal Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), the "Sun Gym Gang" successfully gets Kershaw to sign over all his finances. But when Kershaw survives an attempted murder by the gang, he hires private investigator Ed DuBois (Ed Harris) to catch the criminals after the Miami Police Department fails to do so. Then things REALLY go awry.

Others to round out the cast are Rob Corddry as John Mese, Lugo's boss, Ken Jeong as Johnny Wu, a self-proclaimed get rich quick scammer, Michael Rispoli as Frank Gripa, a porn king, Keili Lefkovitz as Krisztina Furton, Bar Paly as Sorina Luminita, Rebel Wilson as Robin Peck, Adrian's girlfriend, Larry Hankin as Pastor Randy, Emily Rutherfurd as Carolyn 'Cissy' DuBois, Tony Plana as Captain Lopez, and Peter Stormare as Dr. Bjornson.

This was directed with the adrenaline, high-powered energy we've come to expect by Bay ("Bad Boys" '95, "The Rock" '96, "Armageddon" '98, "Pearl Harbor" '01, "Bad Boys II" '03, "The Island" '05, "Transformers" '07, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" '09, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" '11). Look at this resume, and it's easy to see that he is the king of the summer big-budget summer flick. It was cleverly written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely based on the magazines articles by Pete Collins.
What's so amazing about this film the fact that it was based on a true story. This is so ludicrous, the filmmakers, in the middle of the film, have to add a caption reminding you that this IS a true story. These guys really put the 'S' in stupidity. Another film that comes to mind, that was in that same vein was the Coen Brothers' "Fargo" '96. It was equally difficult to believe that it, too, was based on a true story.

This is a typical guy flick as are most of Michael Bay's projects are. You will be entertained more by the implausibility of this story than by the action, and special effects that we see in so many of these type of films. These guys are based on real people, which will have you shaking your head in disbelief as this film unfolds before one's eyes.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                      Rated: R                        129mins.