Pain and Gain (2013) Review

“Pain and Gain”

Michael Bay is tough to like. He makes the kinds of movies I like (crazy action movies), and yet with a few exceptions I don’t like most of his movies. I found the first “Bad Boys,” first “Transformers,” and “The Island” enjoyable, but the only one I could say was good was “The Rock.” All his other movies ranged from average (“Armageddon”) to painfully terrible (“Transformers 2”). With a stroke of luck though, his new movie, “Pain and Gain,” overcame the trepidation that comes with him and came out as easily his best movie since “The Rock.”

Much of this can be attributed to the fact that “Pain and Gain” is based on a true story, and one that proves to be an engagingly loopy one filled with muscle-bound protagonists and pitch-black comedy. Three bodybuilders, fed up with being on the outs, decide to rob a millionaire whom they believe doesn’t deserve his success. For the ringleader, Daniel Lugo, his rationale is that this man doesn’t care much about exercise while him and his cohorts Paul and Adrian do.

These three are perhaps the most self-absorbed, narcissistic and dim-witted main characters to come by in a long time. The key difference here, and why this one works better than many of Bay’s previous movies, is that we aren’t supposed to like them. One of big problems I have with Bay’s movies is that we are supposed to like characters that are doing horrible/annoying things (the cheeriness that Marcus and Mike have while driving over dead bodies in “Bad Boys 2” for instance). Here, there isn’t that pretense. Daniel, Paul and Adrian are terrible people, and we laugh at their antics, not with them. When they cross the line from the already bad extortion and torture into flat-out murder, these guys have what’s coming to them.

Even with though their actions are reprehensible, “Pain and Gain” finds plenty to laugh at in their general boneheaded nature. In this regard, The Rock (sorry Dwayne, you will always be known as The Rock to me) completely steals the movie as the Jesus loving, coke-snorting maniac that is Paul. His mannerisms and ways of speaking, especially when coked out of his mind, frequently got some of the best laughs out of me.

Still, this not to disregard Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie’s work as Daniel and Adrian respectively. Mackie unfortunately gets the shaft compared to Wahlberg and Johnson, although he gets his moments to shine every now and then. Wahlberg, meanwhile, is lucky enough to not only have good comedic timing, but also many of the scripts more memorable lines. In fact, surprisingly for a Michael Bay movie, the script by “Captain America” writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely is the best thing about it. I was shocked at how many hilarious quotes were sticking in my mind after the movie finished.

While “Pain and Gain” definitely contains more good than bad, its weaknesses are familiar to those in other Bay movies. The most obvious is that it is much too long. Bay still hasn’t learned that not every movie needs to push its way over the two-hour mark, especially when it’s a comedy with scenes that don’t add to the movie in any significant way. One where Wahlberg heads up a neighborhood watch could have easily been just an amusing Blu-ray deleted scene. Also, the multiple scenes of damaged millionaire Kershaw dealing with a diarrhea-prone patient mate in the hospital were not only unnecessary, but just plain gross when the movie didn’t need to rely on such low-brow material.

There’s also the matter of an overabundance of narration. It would have been fine had it only been used for Daniel, Paul and Adrian, but other minor characters get their own scenes too when they would have been better without it. Narration can be a useful storytelling tool, but an overreliance on it can be a cheap crutch, and giving it out to too many characters is erratic and jarring.

Still, even with this unevenness that is typical of Bay’s other movies also, “Pain and Gain” mostly succeeds because of the fine cast assembled here (I’ll give this to Bay, he knows how to put together a great cast of character actors, including Ed Harris and Tony Shalhoub) and the absurd story that provides it with so much material to mine. A word of warning, the trailer makes it look like an action comedy, whereas it really is just a super dark comedy with small bits of action. And as a no-boundaries type of comedy, it largely works, even some bloat and excess keeping it from totally soaring.

3/4

Premium Rush (2012) Review

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Premium Rush

Not every movie has to be complex or thought-provoking to work. Some of the best pleasures of cinema are the movies that have a simple premise, with maybe a few extra details thrown in to flesh out the concept. Action movies such as “Crank” accomplish this perfectly well, and horror movies like “Halloween” can get away with sticking to their focused guns. “Premium Rush” is another movie in the same line as those; set up a plot with multiple characters and motives, and then unleash the bread-and-butter bike chases that audiences paid to see.

“Premium Rush” also sidesteps one of the issues with many “simple” movies with its creative story structure. Right from the start we’re thrown into the action with our hero, Wiley, speeding down the New York City streets on his brakeless bike to deliver a package. Once he returns to the bike messenger office, his boss hands him an envelope that soon has him being hunted down by a crooked cop. The movie throws you directly into the action, and then assuredly slides in flashbacks every now and then to flesh out the characters and plot beyond it’s deceptively straightforward basis.

This back-and-forth arrangement means there is never a dull moment as we are entertained by the action while waiting for the next piece of the plot to fall into place at anytime. To make this work, a film such as this needs a charismatic cast to carry it through the nonstop movement, and everybody ably fills their positions. As our snarky lead, Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings charm and determination to a character that we should probably hate in real life (seriously, cyclists are irritating, dangerous people, especially in a place like N.Y.C.)

While I’m sure many people would see this movie for his presence, the clear standout player here is Michael Shannon, as the corrupt cop, Bobby Monday. Shannon is typically known for his reserved acting style in very serious dramas, but “Premium Rush” gives him the chance to take off the reigns and have fun. Monday is a character that constantly digs himself into a deeper hole and is full of awkward tics, and Shannon’s willingness to go all out yields unexpectedly riotous results. He’s hams it up in the best kind of way, relentlessly barreling through the film like the coyote chasing Gordon-Levitt’s Road Runner.

And when it brings itself back to the bike chases, “Premium Rush” doesn’t pause for a minute. Even when characters are learning new information and talking to each other, they remain planted in their seat riding down the crowded streets. The stunt work (even when it’s an obvious stuntman doing it) is clever and lively, and director David Koepp finds creative places to throw the camera into the flow without relying on cheap visual effects and flashiness. The extent of his tricks is a digital map that shows Wiley’s path and a “Sherlock Holmes” style effect where time slows down so Wiley can figure out how to dodge traffic.

Koepp’s approach is straightforward and streamlined, which is a perfect compliment for how the movie goes about its business. Whether “Premium Rush” sticks with you once you leave the theater or its energetic thrills fizzle from your mind moments later, that’s ultimately not the point. It’s an adrenaline shot of a movie that achieves what most of the “Fast and the Furious” movies miss out on: a sense of good, clean fun buoyed by likable actors and a mischievous sense of humor.

3/4