Pain and Gain

We can stop right here. And the winner for best use of advertising to alter the true nature of a movie to draw in an audience is… “Pain and Gain.” Michael Bay couldn’t be with us tonight to accept the award, but he wanted me to thank Josh Duhamel and Optimus Prime. “Pain and Gain” tells the (relatively) true story of the “Sun Gym Gang,” who murdered two people in the early 90s while trying to extort money. Someone somewhere thought it would be a good idea to make this film a dark comedy, but the result is a creepy movie with a conflicted audience that feels bad for spending money on a film that glorifies murderers. This has happened before with films like Bonnie and Clyde and Public Enemies, but Pain and Gain is in poor taste.

Mark Wahlberg stars as the leader of the gang and provides his usual humor in the beginning of the film. But after it’s clear that everyone isn’t making it out of this debacle alive, it’s just not funny anymore. The same goes for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is both perfect and out of place in the role. A big softy fits the actor’s filmography, but the guy has built a career on being a moral compass, so watching him give in to drugs and murder takes a while to digest. Antony Mackie, who plays the third of the gang follows suit with a decent performance as a strange character.

Dark comedies can be done well, but when a film keeps boasting that it is a true story and has the protagonists getting more heinous by the scene, it’s difficult to enjoy. The plot moves along well, but the character development stalls about halfway through. The three leads do their best with it and they should be recognized for that. But ultimately, the trailers are much funnier than anything that ever happens on screen. I guess the thing to do would be to blame director Michael Bay. Isn’t that what everyone else does?

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.