2.5/5
Michael Bay's "Pain & Gain". Where do I begin. On one hand I loathe the man. He has lowered my expectations for anything he could ever possibly put out. I have never enjoyed a single moment of any of his movies. On the other hand "Pain & Gain" is probably his best movie since "Bad Boys". Now that doesn't mean much to me, but it shows he has learned to tone everything back and stop taking himself so seriously. The movie is obnoxious, juvenile, and often annoying, but I could tell it was having fun with itself. Many of the Bay essentials are here, gratuitous slow motion, all the buxom women the teenage boys crave, and the unbelievable characters that we really don't care or root for. Yet, there is something about this movie that doesn't make me loathe every second of it.
The movie begins with Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) doing upside down sit-ups on top of a roof when all of a sudden police swarm the area. In a panic, Lugo attempts to put as much distance between him and the police. As he is running through the street he is hit by an oncoming police car. We then go back about six months as we are told that the following is based on a true story and that it all took place in Miami between 1994 and 1995. Lugo is applying at the gym of John Mese and explains to him that he has a criminal past and that he had been in white collar prison for scamming people out of their money. Lugo also promises to triple membership in three weeks. Through a variety of different methods he is able to accomplish this feat. Free memberships for strippers seems to have brought in enough people to please Mese and give Lugo a promotion. Lugo explains that you can only succeed if you are willing to go out and grab it for yourself. In reality, though, he is displeased with his current life situation. A glorified spotter at a gym doesn't exactly rake in the money. Lugo is then assigned as the personal trainer for Victor Kershaw (Tony Shaloub) a rich and greedy businessman who likes to rub it in everyone's face. He is cocky and arrogant and Lugo has had enough.
In an attempt to better himself he attends a self help seminar by Johnny Wu (another dreadful cameo by Ken Jeong). Wu is a brash self made millionaire who is scamming people out of their money for his cockamamie business advice. However he has enthralled Lugo into developing a "Three Finger Plan", which Lugo has taken upon himself to assume that he should kidnap Kershaw and extort him for everything he owns. He believes he is righteous in doing so because Victor is a bad man, who doesn't appreciate what he has. Daniel convinces his co-workers Adrian (Anthony Mackie), a steroid abusing muscleman, and Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), an ex con who used to worship cocaine, but now worships Jesus. Together they make what has to be the worst case of idiots leading idiots.
After a few bungled kidnapping attempts they finally succeed. Kershaw is now in their grasps and everything is going according to plan. That is until he is able to figure out that it is Lugo who has masterminded this whole operation. In the back of his mind Lugo knows they are eventually going to have to kill him. First they have to get him to sign over all of his belongings to them. Torture is there answer to this. They burn, maim, and hang him upside down to get him to finally break down and sign the papers. Lugo takes it to the bank feeling like he is on top of the world. The contract, however, has to be notarized or else they are just meaningless papers. Daniel goes to his boss, Mese, who just happens to be a notary. He won't do it because he needs to witness the signing himself. Lugo then offers to sponsor his recently cancelled weight lifting competition with the money and just like that they have the money.
Now comes time for them to bungle the killing of Kershaw. They get him drunk, put him in a car, crash it into a construction site. Only for him to be alive when they check. Next course of action is obviously to set fire to the car. The car explodes, yet Kershaw miraculously is able to walk away with minor burns. Thinking quick they attempt to run him over, but fail at that endeavor as well. Kershaw is now on the ground as Paul backs the car over him. Thinking they have finally finished him off they flee the scene. Kershaw is taken to the hospital and interviewed by the police who dismiss his wild, drunken story. The three criminals make off without a hitch.
Daniel gets the house and lawn he has always wanted, Adrian gets married, and Paul snorts his money away. Kershaw has to hire a private detective because the police won't investigate. Ed Dubois (Ed Harris) is the one to take his case. A gumshoe detective who can see right through Daniel, Adrian, and Paul. However he cannot prove a kidnapping took place and the property transfer has Kershaw's signature so it is all legal and binding. He takes it to the police and tells him he should deal with it now before they strike again. The police chief blows it off because Kershaw is known to have criminal connections.
After a bungled robbery of a bank truck, Paul shows up to Adrian's wedding with plans to scam a "douche" he met at the club. This douche is Frank Griga, a millionaire with a busty girlfriend. They catch his attention with a made up telecommunications project in India. They invite the two over to Adrian's house where Daniel, after being called an amateur, accidentally crushes Frank's head with a weight. They tranquilize the girlfriend and eventually kill her too. They then go to his house to empty his safe. When they get there they find that they have the wrong combination so they steal his exotic sports car instead. They load the bodies into their van and take them back to the warehouse. They chop the bodies up and attempt to dissolve them in barrels. They throw the barrels into the swamp and wash their hands of the crime. Dubois is hot on their trail and eventually convinces police to arrest them. This brings us back to the beginning on the roof. After being hit by the police cruiser Lugo is able to escape onto one of Kershaw's speedboats and book it down to the Bahamas where he believes Kershaw has offshore accounts filled with money. In reality it has personal belongings such as photographs and the like. At that moment Dubois shows up and has Lugo arrested, after a needless drive through a marketplace. Lugo and Adrian are sentenced to death and Paul receives 15 years for his confession.
Now it all begs the question of 'who are we pulling for'. These three are our protagonists yet they have no redeeming qualities. Kershaw is the one being extorted, but he's such a pompous ass that we don't care about him either. Is Dubois really our hero? It's all sort of a letdown. Maybe it's Bay's way of saying the world isn't black and white. But probably not. Because this movie isn't that subtle. It's loud, in your face, and in the end not that great.
Shane Black has breathed new life into the Iron Man franchise after the less than stellar second installment, yet it all seems a little lackluster when it's all taken in. Robert Downey Jr is his usual smart aleck, quirky self and, again, it works well. He is able to carry the film even after, what I believe to be, one of the worst twists in mainstream cinema. All of the series regulars (Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle) to a movie that makes them much more likeable. Guy Pearce is introduced into the Marvel Universe as Aldrich Killian, a scientist studying a biological research project known as Extremis.
