Sunday, April 28, 2013

"Pain and Gain" - Review

“Pain and Gain” - Review

“Pain & Gain” is a true story dark comedy action film based on a series of Miami New Times articles on the kidnapping, brutal torture, extortion and the murder of several victims by body builders Daniel Lugo, Paul Doyle (renamed in the movie) and Adrian Doorbal who were referred to as  the "Sun Gym Gang."

Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) was a regular bodybuilder who worked at the Sun Gym along with friend Adrian (Anthony Mackie). Both are tired of living a poor life existence, so Lugo concocts a plan to kidnap Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a rich, arrogant local businessman and a regular at the gym with the idea of extorting his money by torturing him over several days until he signs over all of his assets to the gang.

 With the help of recently released criminal Paul (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 a private investigator named Ed Du Bois (Ed Harris) to catch the criminals after the Miami Police Department dismisses his claims as meaningless; fabricated at worse.

So what is my review? Speechless is my review; I was left speechless as to what I had just witness for the 2 hour running time. On one hand it could have been the dumbest movie I had ever seen or the maybe the most amazing unbelievable true story about dumb people I had ever seen.

At its core this is a story about 3 steroid induced Neanderthal morons, who put in motion a stupid idea that they actually believe is brilliant under the guidance of film Director Michael Bay who strategically and correctly bathes the entire film in perpetual comic relief. But the prevailing question here was the film any good? Not enough for me to say to see it in the theater, but still good enough of a recommendation for you to eventually rent when it becomes available.

This is not a bad film, just a hard film to watch about what unbridled pristine stupidity looks like in its purest form that also managed to creatively provide several scenes (mostly involving actor Dwayne Johnson) that had me rolling out of my chair in laughter.

In the end, “Pain and Gain” from each scene to the next left me to ponder reflectively how this could have ever actually happened on this planet earth in any life time. And yet it did.

2 – 3/4 Stars

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