REVIEW: Pain & Gain

Pain & Gain (2013): Dir. Michael Bay. Written by: Christopher Markus and Stephen Feely. Based on the magazine articles by Pete Collins. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris and Rebel Wilson. Rated R (Brawn, boobs and bad words). Running time: 129 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

There’s a good satire somewhere in Pain & Gain, a based-on-a-true-story (loosely) crime caper about three bodybuilders who kidnap a filthy rich sonofabitch and steal all his money and assets.

The mastermind of the operation is Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), a personal trainer at a Miami gym who sees a deserving victim in Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a high-rolling client. Kershaw is a grade-A asshole. He doesn’t appreciate what he has. So says Lugo, at least. If someone were to rob the guy, there’s no question he’d have it coming. Following a tough-love motivational seminar from a dubious authority named Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), Lugo becomes convinced that the only way to get what you want in life is to be a doer. Getting what you want is, after all, the American Dream. He hatches a plan.

His pal and fellow employee at the gym, Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), is down for it. Doorbal has just come back from the doctor where he found out his steroid use has made him impotent. There’s a cure, a serum injected directly into the penis, but it’s expensive. Maybe a kidnap-and-robbery heist is exactly what he needs.

But they need one more guy if this tricky scheme is going to come to fruition. Enter Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), an ex-convict and former coke addict with a chest as wide as a pick-up truck. Doyle is going to take some convincing. In prison, he found God and reformed his life. He cut out booze and drugs, and now preaches the word of the Lord. Doyle believes in second chances, another proud American principle. Old habits die hard though and for reasons that are neither convincing nor entirely clear, ­­­Doyle joins the team.

The only hitch in this trio’s plan is, of course, that they’re all idiots. The kidnapping is amateurish and sloppy but – astonishingly – they pull it off. That's when the real trouble starts. These scenes have a lot of comic potential and though the film gets its share of laughs, director Michael Bay does not have the light touch and deft comedic timing to get the most out of a good script. He doesn’t always give the space for a joke to land and I wonder what this film might have been like in the hands of a director who knew how to milk the material for everything it was worth. The scenes don’t have time to breathe; Mr. Bay hurries things along, spending more time on action than on the witty banter between the crooks, which should have been at the heart of this movie.

Michael Bay’s flashy style gets in the way too. The script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely has bite but by amping up the energy at every possible moment, Mr. Bay misses opportunities to dig into his character’s inept interpretations of the American Dream. The superficiality of Doyle’s born-again religious transformation, Doorbal’s obsession with his shlong, and the whole group’s fixation on body image are all ripe with satirical potential but the movie is not interested in pursuing or exploring these ideas. It prefers instead to indulge in the more shallow pleasures of a good chase scene (and there are a few pretty good ones here). The movie is too juiced up for its own good.

But Pain & Gain does show off the comedic skills of its stars, particularly Dwayne Johnson whose nimble work as a heavyweight dunce is a lot of fun. Rebel Wilson as Robin, Doorbal’s girlfriend, admirably checks off the film’s dirty jokes box, and Tony Shalhoub is excellent as the mean and nasty love-to-hate-him victim. Ed Harris also makes a welcome appearance late in the film as a private detective. Anchoring the cast is Mark Wahlberg, who is capable of effortlessly shifting gears from action hero to comedian. He is an impressive physical specimen in this movie but remains an endearing and likable everyman.

Too bad that the skills of this cast are held back by their director. A more subtle filmmaker than Michael Bay might have really let them rip but what can you do? The characters in Pain & Gain are always talking about the importance of getting what you want but sometimes you have to settle for what you’ve got.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/2/13

BEST OF THE DECADE - #6: A History of Violence

A History of Violence (2006): Dir. David Cronenberg. Written by Josh Olson, based on the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke. Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt. Rated R (strong brutal violence, graphic sexuality, nudity, language and some drug use). Running time: 95 min.

**NOTE: This review freely discusses elements of the film’s plot, and if you have not yet seen the film or are unfamiliar with the plot, I would recommend watching it first.

The crime genre has been around since The Great Train Robbery captivated audiences in 1903. There is something thrilling about watching a life of crime unfold onscreen, almost as if we’re hardwired as humans to be entertained by such exploits. More than one hundred years after that first cinematic heist, the crime genre still dominates film and audiences continue to be entertained by the violent acts of robbers, drug dealers and gangsters. David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, adapted by Josh Olson from the graphic novel of the same name, is a compulsively entertaining film that capitalizes on this ingrained fascination with crime while also exploring the moral and psychological implications of violence. The film invites us to enjoy the action onscreen, but then questions that very instinctual pleasure.

A History of Violence is genre film populated by larger-than-life gangsters and quaint Midwesterners. A seemingly innocent family man, Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), runs a diner in Millbrook, Indiana with his loving wife, Edie (Maria Bello). They have a son in high school and a daughter still young enough to be afraid of monsters under the bed. They know the sheriff on a first name basis and do nothing to invite trouble into Millbrook. This changes when a pair of professional killers passes through town, tries to rob the diner and murder everyone in it. Tom suddenly takes action by killing the two men with unusual efficiency for a small town man. Tom becomes a local hero and the media attention attracts a few “bad men” from out of town, most notably the menacing Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), who recognizes Tom as an unfavorable acquaintance from years ago named Joey. The film is economically edited to a lean 95 minutes, yet David Cronenberg evokes more authentic emotion in those 95 minutes than most directors could in three hours. Every scene does its share of work, from subtleties at the breakfast table that establish the Stall family dynamics, to an earnest sex scene that shows Tom and Edie are still very much in love after years of marriage. Once the action starts, the film rockets along with a series of increasingly tense and revealing scenes.

Though the film functions as prime entertainment, it is also deeply layered with ideas regarding the nature of human violence. We see the teenaged Jack Stall possibly filling his father’s old shoes as he stands up to a bully in what turns out to be a more brutal fight that the typical hallway scuffle. Issues of identity make up the film’s main drama – are Tom and Joey really different identities, or two halves living within the same man? After Edie witnesses this other side of her husband come out, she confronts him in the hospital. Has their marriage been an act? Where is the line between lies and true emotion? Without ever betraying the moments that precede it, this scene pushes the film beyond the expectations we hold for a conventional crime drama.

A History of Violence is like a sequel we would never expect to see to a gangster film. Colorful characters like Ed Harris’s Carl Fogarty, or William Hurt as Joey’s brother are compelling enough to steal an entire film, but only make appearances here. William Hurt even received an Oscar nomination for his brief but charismatic 20 minutes of screen time. It’s as if the world of gangster films has seeped into the real world, and it’s from this interaction that A History of Violence creates its drama. Joey comes out of Tom in one violent moment, and that momentary transformation allows the past to commingle with the present.

David Cronenberg, who made a name for himself as an auteur of the bizarre with a string of cult-classic sci-fi and horror films, proves himself to be a masterful director here. Watch, for example, the final scene, when Viggo Mortensen comes home after a final visit with his brother and finds his family eating a meatloaf dinner in silence. As he stands outside his home, we see Joey and Tom at once in his face, and he wonders how the two identities can be reconciled. Without speaking a word, Edie looks up as he enters the room and Maria Bello’s expressive face asks him who he is, Tom or Joey? By cutting between close-ups of the two actors, a speechless conversation unfolds between them. Accompanied by Howard Shore’s musical score, this quiet moment of domesticity turns into the height of drama. The scene cuts to black and the film ends on a moment of uncertainty, but not ambiguity. The film has very clearly introduced big questions that do not have easy answers, if they have them at all. Cronenberg crafts a hugely entertaining film, but delves deeper than most filmmakers would by exploring the consequences of the characters’ violence. By reeling us in early and then turning the film on its head, he leaves us as devastated as the Stall family sitting at the dinner table.

- Steve Avigliano, 2/5/10