Pain and Gain (2013) Movie Review

PAIN AND GAIN (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

The movie illustrates that your either a do'er or your a don't'er, it's just a shame that this film didn't know what it was. 

Based on a true story, Pain and Gain revolves around three body-builders  named Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) whom all believe they deserve a better life. Because of this, Daniel decides that the best way to earn money fast is to kidnap a man named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) and make him give over all his assets to him, leaving him bankrupt. Now with very little experience and nothing but their will and biceps, they begin planning their technique and overall plan. Because this is based on a fairly recent true story it does raise some concern from the friends and families watching. This is because the movie although does not show it directly, but the three protagonists were terrible people and killed alot of people in the process of their plan. Also, some of the stuff that occurs in the story does not seem the one bit realistic. With these negatives aside, the film's plot is OK though is fairly accurate to it's source material. 

Still of Dwayne Johnson, Tony Shalhoub and Mark
Wahlberg

Since the director is the former great Michael Bay, this does raise some problems with both the special effects and basically the entire movie. This is because Bay has made himself a household name by making every movie with enough explosions as possible, which was evident during the Transformers films. These flashy effects are unfortunately evident in this movie as nearly every shoot out seems to have alot of flashing lights and explosions occurring  As well as this, the movie sometimes seems to change colour scheme from normal to increased contrast which bugged me throughout the film. I will admit however that the fight scenes in the movie while cool, only were cool for about one minute, then your just sitting there thinking "Why is there so many explosions and other shit going on". That's literally what I said while watching Pain and Gain. To sum up, the movie while at times had cool effects, it's own idea let it down in the form of colour schemes and filling the screen with nothing but special effects.

Still of Anthony Mackie, Mark Wahlberg and Dwanye
Johnson

I will admit that throughout the movie I continued to think that there are some stand out actors in the movie. For example, Wahlberg and Mackie bring what they can to the table and do it well as they are both great actors, especially Mark. Shalhoub also does what he can as majority of the movie, he is just stuck in the hands of our so called heroes. About halfway through the movie Ed Harris turns up on the scene and he really is a good character and you can tell he is having a good time with his role. Bar Paly plays Dwayne Johnson's love interest in the movie and to be frank, she really is only there as eye candy, and she does play the eye candy well. Without a doubt the best character in the movie, Paul played by Dwanye Johnson. The thing I liked about his character is that he's the funniest of the group, he is the biggest both emotionally and physically and to top it off, he's played by The Rock, what more could you ask. Overall, the acting I felt was pretty good for what they were given. 

Still of Dwayne Johnson

To conclude, Pain and Gain is just one of those movies that tried to be something it's not. It tried a little too hard at times to be a Drama and a really good kidnapping movie. However, it was let down by poor directing, over the top effects and decent acting. I'd hate to give this guy even more crap, but I feel like this movie could have been brought to life by a different director and I feel the outcome would have been better. 

OVERALL: 6.3/10