|
Pain & Gain
| Released |
30 August 2013 |
| Director |
Michael Bay |
Starring
|
Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Bar Paly, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong |
Writer(s)
|
Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely |
Producer(s)
|
Michael Bay, Ian Bryce, Donald De Line |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
129 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy, crime, drama |
| Rating |
16 |
|
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Large and in charge.
About halfway through Pain & Gain a caption pops up on the screen to remind the audience that what they are watching is in fact a true story. On paper this may seem like an unnecessary intrusion beyond the fourth wall that amounts to little more than showing off, but somehow it fits the insanely manic tone of the film perfectly.
Michael Bay’s true crime caper is a bizarre mix of action, black comedy and utter style over substance, but somehow it all comes together with a slick ease. The film tells the story of a gang of bulked up hoodlums (played with relish by Wahlberg, Johnson and Mackie) with more muscles than sense, who stage a series of kidnappings and robberies in order to live out their deluded version of the American dream.
Everything about the story is in-your-face and devoid of subtlety. Wahlberg and Johnson are note perfect in their performances, and come across as henchmen with deluded intentions of being the heroes in their own movie. Their ultra-macho bravado is like a biting satire of a generation of men raised to emulate Arnold Schwarzenegger and Top Gun.
The sheer glamour of Bay’s directorial style (with his trademark fetishistic attachment to sleek sports cars and bikini clad babes pushed to its absolute limit) leaves the viewer in doubt as to which side the director is even on. Is he celebrating these violent psychopaths? Is he glamorising the lifestyle in a tongue in cheek way that is supposed to reflect on the moral degeneration of society, sort of like Brian De Palma did in Scarface?
Pain & Gain is a dumb movie that has a lot of clever things to say. The whole film whips past like music video or one big montage, as the inept criminals bumble into worse and worse situations.
Pain & Gain is what you get if you took the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, pumped it full of steroids and cocaine, swapped the setting for a Florida beach, and dropped a hunky muscle head into the leading role. The fact that this actually works is proof in itself that maybe Bay is in on the internet joke that is his filmmaking career after all. The whole point of Pain & Gain is all about showing off, of being the biggest, having the fastest car, the most beautiful girlfriend. The fact that it is a true crime story laced with inky black humour shows that maybe Bay does realise that that there is more to filmmaking than this after all, he just doesn’t care. He makes films that are the guiltiest of guilty pleasures for people just like the protagonists of this film. But he doesn’t empathise with them. Why else would he make a movie where the main characters see themselves as being in a Michael Bay movie?
You can appreciate the elegance of the self-referencing and self-depreciating post-modernity, or you can just enjoy Pain & Gain for the unnecessary slickness of the cinematography, the fast cars and beautiful women, and possibly the best performance of Dwayne Johnson’s career.
- Bernard O’Rourke |
