The following article contains spoilers for Pain & Gain:
Reports of Michael Bay’s stupidity have been greatly exaggerated.
Yes, much of his filmography appeals to throngs of horny teenaged males (Megan Fox’s career sends flowers), but Bad Boys and The Rock (still his best film to date) prove Bay can craft competent action spectacles outside of a glossy two-hour Linkin Park music video. And while not a return to his Simpson/Bruckheimer glory days, Bay’s newest film Pain & Gain takes an admirable first step toward a brighter direction.
As the Miami New Times documented, Pain & Gain is a (mostly) true story of opportunity, steroids, and murder. Beyond a surprising number of laughs and a fantastic cast — highlighted by the heavylifting of Tony Shalhoub and Dwayne Johnson — Pain & Gain shows a director actively resisting the aesthetic hole he’s been digging for the last five years: tropical sunsets, military police raids, scantily-clad 20-somethings, “epic spinning supershots”. All of that is still present in Pain & Gain, but Bay also introduces distracting amounts of shaky cam, affixing the camera to Danel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) mid-ab workout or at the center of a steering wheel. The visual language is jarring and a definite development in Bay’s style, even if some of the ensuing angles don’t make a whole lot of sense.
Pain & Gain, while entertaining, ends up as more of an interesting failure than an experimental triumph. Bay resists certain tendencies but he never nails the Coen-esque dark comedy he tries for, and its overall construction is a glorious mess. However, if only to insert a compelling theme into this very real story of three bodybuilders turned murderers, Pain & Gain makes no qualms about hiding Bay’s obsession with the “American dream.” Maybe it’s from all of Daniel Lugo’s stump speeches. Maybe it’s from the simple fact that Pain & Gain seems to be plastered in American flags, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Michael Bay was using a very real story to laugh not only at three wayward meatheads but at political conservatives, too.
In the opening minutes, Walhberg’s Daniel Lugo takes every opportunity his voiceover affords him to remind us of how freaking jacked he is. But when he’s not bragging about benching four hundred or squatting five, Lugo complains. A lot. He complains about not having what he deserves. He complains about getting screwed by the man, about Uncle Sam taxing the low wages he makes as Sun Gym’s personal trainer. Lugo finds a shoulder to cry on in a new client, Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a supremely wealthy sleaze ball who lets on to Lugo that his “offshore accounts” are a mighty fine way to keep the government’s hands off his money. Clearly missing the point, Lugo instead decides to rob Kershaw and then use his assets to “make America better.” As he tells us, Lugo adores the martyred gangsters of pop culture, the Michael Corleones and Tony Montanas. To him, these are self-made men who became rich by their own accord, never mind all the terrible things said accord required of them.
Madoff with muscles
In his idolization of movie mobsters, Pain & Gain fashions Lugo as a totem of Wall Street thievery, a man who’s willing to make as much money as possible no matter what the cost. Before his job at Sun Gym, Lugo confesses mid-interview to owner John Mese (Rob Corddry) that he’s been to prison before, indicted on charges of duping the wealthy into taking out loans from nonexistent Hong Kong firms, investments Lugo would pocket for himself. Lost on Lugo is any moral code.; making moolah is the American Dream, plain and simple. It’s reminiscent of the cold, calculating crookery of the country’s Bernie Madoffs, and Bay knows this, never so much as showing remorse in Lugo. Sure there’s regret, but it’s in failing to break $100K on his “earnings” before getting caught. Bay positions Lugo as an ill-willed opportunist, a muscled, meatheaded parody of the 1%.
“Give me money, because me”
Bay also uses fitness to take digs at misguided elites and the refashioning of their own autobiographies. Lugo and his cronies Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and Paul Doyle (Johnson) believe that they deserve wealth and fame simply because they are, well themselves. Call it wealth via birthright or a wife-beatered middle finger to meritocracy, but Pain & Gain brims with unqualified self-entitlement. The internal monologues of the Sun Gym Gang are rife with “I deserve this” and “I want that,” but they’re always incomplete thoughts, further shortened by an editing pace that speeds at frantic clip. Adding to the delusion is that the uber-jacked Sun Gym Gang trumpets their worth in relation to their muscles, as if physical superiority somehow translates to financial merit. Bay’s parodic characterizations call to mind the self-editing of moguls like Donald Trump, a tremendously successful individual, but one who fails to acknowledge his actual “rags to riches” father Fred Trump and that Fred’s $400 million estate is far closer to the narrative the Donald sees in himself.
1 + 1 =3
When the Sun Gym Gang finally act on the worst “get rich quick” scheme of all time, they kidnap, torture, and force Shalhoub’s Kershaw, hoping the sandwich mogul will inevitably break and sign his fortunes over to them. Lugo believes the pain in the butt extortion process alone is proof positive that he’s busting his ass and deserves something for his efforts. Meanwhile, Anthony Mackie’s Adrian woos Rebel Wilson with Kershaw’s stolen greyhound, and Johnson’s Doyle inserts devoted prayer sessions in between bouts of interrogation and torture. Merit through theft? Piety in violence? Bay never explains how Paul Doyle can sport a giant gold cross and preach about the service of Jesus Christ while beating any obstacles to a bloody pulp. Pain & Gain conflates how the hardcore Christian right condones violence on one hand — the death penalty, nuclear armament, military spending — while remaining “pro-life” on abortion and euthanasia. The Sun Gym Gang is set on getting from ‘A’ to ‘C’ regardless of what ‘B’ is and removed from any illogical hypocrisies along the way.
“Get that gay stuff outta here”
Let’s not forget the mountain of homophobia Michael Bay adds to Pain & Gain. Even as they sweat and pump iron all day around, yes, lots of dudes, the Sun Gym Gang remains woefully uncomfortable with the LGBT community. Bay plays the trio’s ignorance for laughs and while Lugo’s pep talk to neighborhood boys to cut down on the “gay shit” is more than a little unsettling, Pain & Gain doesn’t want us to laugh with these three when they casually toss “faggot” at one another. Much of the Sun Gym Gang’s interrogation of Victor Kershaw takes place in a gay sex toy factory, and while there is a definite overload on wiener jokes and prosthetic butts, the underlying point seems to favor the gang’s own insecurities. It’s a verbalized paranoia evocative of Christian extremism and the gay-bashing of the far right. What image evokes complete self-unawareness more than three homophobic muscle heads surrounded by hundreds of two foot dildos? Keep in mind that none of Bay’s homophobic additions have any basis in reality; he made it all up.
I am a real American
Slow down though. Bay’s not ripping every registered Republican voter. In fact, he’s mighty careful to separate self-made men like Kershaw from all the crazy posers. Kershaw tells us how he worked six days a week at a Pizza Hut to pay for college tuition before hitting it big on a pipeline and becoming the big cheese of the Schlotzky’s Deli chain. Sure, Kershaw’s a condescending dick, but compared to the Sun Gym Gang, his success seems legitimate. Well, in Bay’s version at least. In reality, Marc Schiller (the “real” Victor Kershaw) testified against Lugo and his cronies and then was immediately slapped with his own lawsuit and arrested for Medicare fraud. Pain & Gain includes none of that. Gigantic a-hole or not, Bay sees Kershaw as a rags-to-riches success story.
Michael Bay isn’t so successful at mimicking the dark comedy of Burn After Reading or Fargo. What Pain & Gain excels at is executing Bay’s own parodic vision of what he sees as a problematic side of the American political spectrum. It’s unclear if Bay future endeavors branch will continue to branch out and distinguish themselves from the Transformers cash cow, but one thing’s for certain: Dwayne Johnson is not going away, America. That’s a platform we can all get behind.
Pain & Gain opens everywhere today