Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Pain & Gain (2013) - Bay succeeds with smaller scope testosterone-fueled true-crime

9/18/2023

Pain & Gain (2013) - Bay succeeds with smaller scope testosterone-fueled true-crime

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Three Hollywood beefcakes against the Stars and Stripes make up this poster for Michael Bay's Pain & Gain

Daniel Lugo is an ambitious bodybuilder and trainer in Miami, Florida, who wants more and makes a plan of how he's going to get it: With two compadres he intends to kidnap a rich man and steal everything he owns.

Pain & Gain is written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (You Kill Me (2007), both), based on a 1999 series of Miami New Times articles about the real-life Sun Gym gang written by Pete Collins. The film is directed by Michael Bay (Bad Boys (1995)).

Bay appropriates a Goodfellas (1990)-like approach to this incredible, more or less true crime story, which succeeds largely thanks to a tremendous cast: Dwayne Johnson (The Other Guys (2010)) is charismatic and funny as a neo-Christian coke-head, and Anthony Mackie (Seberg (2019)) and Mark Wahlberg (Planet of the Apes (2001)) give themselves 100 % as the Stooges-like gang's other two knucklehead members. Tony Shalhoub (Rosy (2018)) is frenetic as one unsympathetic victim; Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids (2011)) is funny; Rob Cordry (80 for Brady (2023)) is cool; and Ed Harris (Absolute Power (1997)) is perfect as the detective who becomes the group's downfall.

Photographed (by Ben Seresin (The Mummy (2017)) with the expected visual flair and eye for details of excess from the sickly Miami life. A part of the fun in Pain & Gain is undeniably in poor taste, (SPOILER especially the chainsaw scene), but since it is a Bay picture about criminal bodybuilders in Miami, this reservation seems pointless. The film gets a bit lost in all the points of its outrageous story and thereby grows long. Yet it remains very entertaining as a dark-humored crime dramedy.

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Pearl Harbor (2001) - Bay's stuffed war melodrama baloney

Armageddon (1998) or, Macho Men Save Earth From Disaster!

Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Bad Boys (1995) - Bay's successful buddy cop debut is still fun

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 26 mil. $

Box office: 87.3 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.35 times its cost)

[Pain & Gain premiered 11 April (Miami, Florida) and runs 129 minutes. Shooting took place from April - June 2012 in Miami, Florida. The film opened #1 to a 20.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3-#4), grossing 49.8 mil. $ (57 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 7.2 mil. $ (8.2 %) and Germany with 6.2 mil. $ (7.1 %). Sun Gym gang victim Mark Schiller sued over his portrayal in the film, and Paramount paid him an undisclosed sum to drop the suit. Bay returned with Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). Johnson returned in Fast & Furious 6 (2013); Wahlberg in 2 Guns (2013). Pain & Gain is rotten at 50 % with a 5.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

9/18/2023

Pain & Gain (2013) - Bay succeeds with smaller scope testosterone-fueled true-crime

Related posts:

Michael Bay: 13 Hours/13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) - Bay portrays controversial recent history in generally thrilling actioner

Pearl Harbor (2001) - Bay's stuffed war melodrama baloney

Armageddon (1998) or, Macho Men Save Earth From Disaster!

Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Bad Boys (1995) - Bay's successful buddy cop debut is still fun

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