Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, and Anthony Mackie (Paramount)“It’s like something you see in a made-for-TV movie.” This is how FBI agent Art Wells described a brutally inept crime wave that descended upon South Miami in the 1990s. Man’s homicidal instinct is a vehicle for tragedy more than amusement, but truth and fiction alike has given us crimes so absurd they become laughable. How else do you describe amateurs who return a broken chainsaw to Home Depot for a refund right after it was used to cut up a body?
It really happened. Pete Collins documented the macabre story in a series of articles called Pain & Gain that appeared in the Miami New Times just before Christmas 1999. Director Michael Bay, with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, embellishes them for his movie of the same name. The first time I heard about these infamous crimes was in fact on an ABC News program. The sensationalist made-for-TV dramatizations told a riveting story, and while black comedy was not the first thing on my mind, murder most funny has been a thing since at least The Ladykillers. But pumped up to a big-screen budget and helmed by a blockbuster director, the true story behind Pain & Gain does not gain traction or laffs.
It’s not for lack of trying. Unfortunately, comedy that tries too hard can be the most unfunny of all. Look at just one of the true crime details that the screenwriters changed. Cindy Eldridge became involved with Adrian Doorbal, one of the body builders involved in a pair of kidnappings in 1990s Miami. Eldridge, who was a nurse and a fitness enthusiast, becomes penis therapist Robin Peck, played by comedienne Rebel Wilson. Bay and his screenwriting charges take a fascinating true crime story and add a zaftig dick nurse, projectile diarrhea and dwarfs. Because America.
Tony Shalhoub (Paramount)If only a more subtle director, like David Cronenberg, had taken on this story. After all, it plays on his signature theme. The bungling masterminds behind the heinous crimes depicted are bodybuilders, and Bay’s plot enhancements are cheap and minor cinematic crimes committed in the name of exploring the depiction of the body politic through what some may deem unusual figures. Did I mention cheap? Theme schmeme, Bay and company turn what could have been a deathly dark comedy into just another gross out fest.
The movie is an Ugly American dream. Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) did time for fraud but is trying to make good at Sun Gym, where gym owner John Mese (Rob Corddry) turns a blind eye to his criminal record and hires him. Paul (Dwayne Johnson) is trying to set his life straight and has taken to volunteering at a Catholic Church. Adrian (Anthony Mackie) completes the unholy trio of men obsessed with their physiques. These stories do not end in redemption.
All goes well at first, if you think coke and strippers equals “well.” Lugo brings in new clients, and the gym thrives under his influence. In one dreamlike sequence, Lugo takes the wheel of a riding mower on display at Sears, which suggests a commercial America of picket fences, but also the Lynchian horror of Blue Velvet. Much of Bay’s visual style can in fact be traced to art cinema – the freeze frames of Truffaut, the energetic camera of Jean Luc Godard, New Wave masters whose innovations have been absorbed into music videos for decades. This is what becomes of art, Bay inadvertently says. The techniques that opened up the floodgates for expression are regurgitated by hacks who excrete a hand-held dayglo paste of muscles and tits shovelled into steaming buckets, ready for the multiplex.
Like gym rats on steroids that inevitably attack the body they were meant to enhance, these dim weightlifters artificially pump up the American dream much like Bay pumps up cinema. But more does not always equal more. Pain & Gain is only half-right.
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Pain & Gain
Directed by Michael Bay
Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
With Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, and Ed Harris.
Rated R for bloody violence, crude sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use.
Running time 130 minutes
Opens today at a multiplex near you.
