No one over 35 will see this action comedy in a multiplex. It's by Michael Bay, who once confessed, "I make movies for teenage boys."
Pain & Gain, about an ambitious Miami fitness instructor called Daniel Lugo, is way too long and, in many ways, lamentably Bay-ish (the women have big parts; they don’t get many lines). Even so, the end result is fascinating. Often smart, always disturbing, it’s a satire stuffed with hilarious villains; a pumped-up, candy-coloured, voice-over-heavy, pop video that suggests it’s okay to kill the rich.
Amazing. I always wondered what the super-macho Bay was hiding. “Class warrior tendencies” certainly wasn’t on the list. Of course, the film doesn’t actually say the wealthy are legitimate targets for chippie proles. It couldn’t. The real-life, mid-Nineties incidents which (loosely) inspire Pain & Gain include two murders, and the victims of those murders have relatives.
But the minute Mark Wahlberg bursts onto screen, as the aforementioned Daniel, you know something’s up. The talented actor — whether in brash blockbusters like Ted or indie classics such as Three Kings and Boogie Nights — has cornered the market in vulnerable working stiffs. He’s the under-educated underdog you can’t help rooting for.
What’s more surprising is that Dwayne Johnson and the lesser known Anthony Mackie (as Daniel’s wide-eyed accomplices) pull off the same trick.
The Sun Gym gang — aka Daniel, Paul and Adrian — aren’t callous, just chaotic. And they parade their sweet dumbness while the camera ogles their curvy arms and enormous chests. They’re less Schwarzenegger, more Marilyn Monroe — if one had to sum up the mood, it would be How to Murder a Millionaire.
The two victims, by contrast, are charmless. Slimy porn king Frank Griga and his pneumatic girlfriend Krisztina Furton embody the values of all the successful folk in this movie: unattractively vulgar, they have zero empathy for those they exploit. Frankly, we’re glad to see ’em go.
If Scorsese’s name was on the credits, Pain & Gain would be hailed as daring; because it’s Bay, many will just hold their noses. No one could accuse the man of suffering for his art, but he’s definitely gone off-message. He’s getting away with murder, right in front of our eyes.
