Pain & Gain

A Partially Educated Review of Pain & Gain

In which Michael Bay manages to make me feel more uncomfortable than I did whilst watching Pearl Harbo(u)r

Before I begin, I feel it is necessary for me to state my stance on the films of Michael Bay. In general, I don't like them, but for me to claim that he is incapable of making a decent film would be a lie as there are a couple of instances where he was successful, namely The Rock (which many agree with me on) and The Island (which no one agrees with me on). Now that's said and I have clarified that I am perfectly open to the possibility of Michael Bay creating a decent film, let's move on to Pain & Gain.

There are some out there who have really been rubbed up the wrong way by this film, to the point where Mark Kermode even called it "a vile, loathsome, nasty, stupid and, let's be honest about this, slightly evil movie". While this may say a hell of a lot about my own sense of morbid curiosity, all that anger just made me want to watch it more, mainly to see whether or not this film actually is as horrific as some say it is. For me, it's certainly uncomfortable viewing. On that note, it's also fairly boring, relying on the same sort of shock tactics you'd expect from the Saw or Human Centipede films (although not quite to the level of gore) in order to create the sort of reactionary responses that they would class as success. My main criticism though isn't that I'm convinced the film is evil. It's that I'm positive it's deluded. Everything that this film does wrong is something it's convinced it's done right.

A mentality is stated early on when an opening voiceover states that the film is a true story, unfortunately. While this would serve as preparation for the fact that what you are about to watch isn't going to be easy viewing, you wouldn't necessarily suspect that they're going to take the true story of these deeply horrible and unsettling crimes and turn them into a black comedy. Worse still, you wouldn't expect a lot of the comedy to come at the expense of one of the victims, but it does, namely Tony Shalhoub as Victor Kershaw. He's not the nicest of characters and, at times, he's downright odious. That, in itself, isn't an issue. Crimes don't only happen to nice people. However, once he becomes the victim of kidnap, blackmail and eventually torture, it still feels like he's designed to be ridiculed not just by the members of the gang, but also by the audience. This is where the real problems start.

Black comedy is a dangerous territory. Get it right and you can carve out some real satirical bite. Get it wrong and you become Frankie Boyle, pushing all the wrong buttons, but failing to justify why. Pain & Gain falls into the latter camp. The three members of the gang are meatheads, pure and simple. They're not portrayed as though you should be admiring them, but the way in which they are played feels more like a Three Stooges sketch than it does a real portrayal of the contemptuous wastes of human flesh that they are. If you've seen the Three Murderers sketch in South Park, you won't be hard pushed to see the similarities here. The difference is that South Park's funny and Pain & Gain isn't. Why? Because, once again, you sit there realising that this all actually happened and any uncomfortable feelings in your stomach will stem from revulsion.

In the end, blame is spread moderately evenly. Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are responsible for the bad jokes and the dodgy tone. Michael Bay is responsible for taking that tone from dodgy to worrying, littering the most horrific scenes with music designed to lighten the mood. He also continues his war against the remotest signs of female character development. While all the female roles are underwritten, Bay frames them as little more than supple breasts and nice arses. Misogyny, thy name is Bay!

Mark Wahlberg also holds some of the blame, his performance taking on the sort of unhinged lack of restraint that gives you a headache. Someone needed to tell him that less is more, but that's probably a big ask considering the director. To be fair to the other actors, he's the worst by a distance. Most are competent and Dwayne Johnson is actually pretty good. It's not a performance that you'll take much pleasure in watching, but it does at least feel like an accurate one.

All in all, Pain & Gain isn't good and while I wouldn't go as far as to join the Evil Parade, it's still not exactly pleasant. What saves it from complete drudgery is some decent performances and one very important element that I would be remiss to ignore: I wanted to see how it ended, less because I was enjoying it, but more because I was interested in seeing the real-life fates of these characters. If it's not quite all pain and no gain, it is still mostly the former.

TWO out of five