"Pain and Gain"

Welcome back!

  Did you have fun while you were away? Be honest. You can tell me. This is the trust nest. It'll stay between us. Where did you go? How long were you there? What is your favorite thing about where you were? How long will I keep asking stupid meaningless questions?

On to the review...

Pain and Gain:
Strring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Tony Shalhoub
  

Overview - Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) is obsessed with fitness. But fitness just ain't payin the bills. When his gym hires a man who was recently released from prison (Johnson), he stats entertaining thoughts about ripping off a rich client (Shalhoub). Can this body-building schemer pull of the heist of the century?

Review - I am going to start out by saying that this movie is one of Dwayne Johnson's funniest performances. There were moments where I just about shot my soda out of my nose because I was laughing so hard. Wahlberg is the lead, but he does a better job at setting people up for jokes than he does as the "headliner". So, I wish to convey that if you want to split your sides laughing, this is your movie.

That said, I need to convey that this movie is rated R for a reason. This is the first rated R movie that Michael Bay (director) has done since "Bad Boys 2" back in 2003. My brother in-law put it best. "I think Michael Bay has been trapped in PG-13 land too long, and knows he is going to be there for a while, so he decided to get all the rated R out of his system." This movie is one of his lowest budgeted movies. This film ran only 20 Million, which is crazy, but nothing compared to the near 200 Million spent on "Transformers: Dark of the Moon". Bay stated that he wanted to do a low-budget movie to "take a break". Wahlberg and Johnson even took pay cuts just to be in it. They even went with some lower-level extras to keep the cost down. Though their fake cocaine budget must have been off the charts!

Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were responsible for work like "Captain America", "Thor", and the "Narnia" trilogy. These blokes know how to write adventure, and intrigue. So it's not a surprise that they'll get your blood pumping, and tickle your proverbial funny bone throughout this movie. Here are a few interesting facts about this film that struck me. 1) This is based on a true story of 3 body builders who actually did this, and a good portion of it is spot on with the real-life account. 2) Michael Bay wanted Wahlberg to be as tan as possible, so he made him get a full-body fake tan once a week throughout filming. 3) Dwayne Johnson bulked up (yea, cuz he's puny) to just over 300lbs for this movie. Fee Fi Fo Fum Mother-F!

They filmed the movie in Miami, Florida. Here's one of the places I take issue. My in-laws live just outside of Miami and I visit often. When movies are filmed in Florida, they seem to be unable to account for the number 1 element of a Floridian lifestyle. Gratuitous amounts of sweat! Theses guys sweat in the gym, but not outside. I know, from much personal experience, that when you are south of Orlando, you need only look out the window from your air conditioned hotel and you start sweating. Oh well, nuances. 

Before I close this out, there are a couple things I need to address. I mentioned that this was rated R for a reason. There is an insane amount of drug and alcohol abuse, and FAR too many shots of women wearing thongs and pretty much no top. At one point they enter a strip club and the viewer gets to sit through a solid 90 seconds of naked breasts flopping about. I have always argued that if you can not establish a strip club scene without having to show a lot of nudity, then you need to find a new job. Or perhaps stick to PG-13. I thought it was completely unnecessary and now puts it into a category where I would feel awkward recommending it, even though it was hilarious. I call that "shooting yourself in the foot".

Overall I would give this one a 4 out of 5. Why such a high score, after what I just said? 2 reasons. 1) Because I love to laugh, and I can just click past the nude scenes. 2) Because it's a crazy story. It's a story you would love to hear from the mouth of the men who actually did it. A story worth telling, in my opinion. I can not, in good conscience, recommend it without warning people of the near naked, and very naked ladies throughout it. But I would likely buy it and just bypass that garbage.

Let me know what you think of what I do. Or perhaps you have something that I could praise or destroy. Email me at entertaindave@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @entertaindave