Title: Pain & Gain
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie
Director: Michael Bay
Genre: Comedy, Action
Summary: A trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong. (IMDb)
Under the arms of director Michael Bay there wasn't many marketing strategies to promote this bad boy, not as much as Transformers and I don't know what it was but it looks to me like it worked. The fact that this wasn't a highly expected and huge movie franchise helped me not to get my hopes up when watching it therefore enjoying it a lot more too.
First let's start with synopsis, a guy, whose name gives the ultimate clue of his narcissism, Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) wants to excel in life and more than muscles he wants to have a lifestyle he can be proud of (or how he would put it "a big green lawn"). So he decides to create the ultimate strike, kidnap some drug dealer and diner owner and extort every single one of his goods. Lugo starts with assembling a team, Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and ex-con and addict who recently turned to religion and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) who needs money to fix his sterility problem. But, as it would be predictable everything goes wrong, the perfect plan turns into perfect stupidity and it would be another boring movie about a failed success if it wasn't for the fact that it is a true story. That means it happened the way it was shown and I tell you: do not look for the story before watching the movie it will kill the excitement, for this is truly a point where real life meets fiction.
As for filmmaking the eccentric Michael Bay did it right, he extracted the funny and silliness in the story transforming what isn't suppose to be that funny into a satire of bodybuilders. You will see graphics throughout the movie and colors everywhere, it is indeed a colorful film. Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson both deliver, the first one plays the ideal conceited, "think-I-am-very-smart" man with a head full of ideas but failed figure, the second one shows the weak link of the group in a way you've never seen before using the muscles to distract you from the character's compassion and vulnerability but yet ridiculous all the way.
I illustrated this review with the Soundtrack cover because the motion picture does have some good background to go with it. The true story aspect to it is what makes the movie worthy to be honest, it makes you think 'how could human beings do this?' and then you laugh, I give most of the credits to the screenplay, really strong and not cliché.
As a final evaluation I'd say this movie is worth watching, don't pass it on because you didn't like Transformers or because you just haven't heard enough good things, the reviews are mixed and there's no "just liking" this movie, there's either "hate it" or "loved it" and to me the second one fits.
Stars: ★★★★
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