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.

 

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

 

 

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.]

 

What do you think of Pain & Gain? 

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

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A sensual romance between two very photogenic young specimens of the human race and a dramatic war-plane situation attracts attention on this poster for Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor

Two brothers in the US Air Force: SPOILER One crashes, - and everyone expects him dead, - so his younger brother takes over his lady. But big brother returns alive, - Oahu's Pearl Harbor air base gets bombed by the Japanese, - and the younger brother dies in the attack!

 

Pearl Harbor is written by Randall Wallace (Braveheart (1995)) and directed by Michael Bay (Bad Boys (1995)).

Handsome flight sequences stand out in Bay's otherwise horrid and history-distorting film that's both grotesquely overlong and filled with tawdry romance. 

 

Related posts:

 

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

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: 140 mil. $

Box office: 449.2 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.20 times its cost)

[Pearl Harbor premiered 21 May (Pearl Harbor, Hawaii) and runs 184 minutes. Wallace was paid 2 mil. $ for his script. Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer requested a 208 mil. $ budget from Disney, who turned that down and also demanded the film have a PG-13 rating. Ben Affleck (Reindeer Games (2000)) made approximately 10 mil. $ from his performance, coming from a 250k $ salary and a 7 % back-end participation deal. Kate Beckinsale (Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)) was paid a flat 50k $ fee. Shooting took place from April - September 2000 in Mexico, Indiana, Texas, including in Houston, California, including in Los Angeles, in Nevada, Hawaii, including at the actual Pearl Harbor, and in England. Disney lavished a 5 mil. $ premiere for almost 2,000 patrons at Pearl Harbor. The film opened #1 to a 59 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then 2 more in the top 5 (#3-#5), grossing 198.5 mil. $ (44.2 % of the total gross). It was the 6th highest-grossing film of the year. It reportedly later made more than 130 mil. $ on domestic home video sales in its first week of release alone. Bay's gross earnings pay reportedly eventually added up to 25 mil. $. The film has been lambasted for its countless historical inaccuracies. It was nominated for 4 Oscars, winning one, for Best Sound Editing. It lost Best Sound to Black Hawk Down, Visual Effects to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Song (There You'll Be by Diane Warren) to If I Didn't Have You by Randy Newman from Monsters, Inc.. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes and a Grammy, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 1.5/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Bay returned with Faith Hill: There You'll Be (2001, music video) and theatrically with Bad Boys II (2003). Affleck returned in Daddy and Them (2001). Pearl Harbor is rotten at 24 % with a 4.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Pearl Harbor? 

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

1. Die Hard (1988) - John McTiernan

2. Bad Lieutenant (1992) - Abel Ferrara 

3. Dirty Harry (1971) - Don Siegel

4. Bad Boys (1995) - Michael Bay

5. Cop Land (1997) - James Mangold

6. Cobra (1986) - George P. Cosmatos

7. Deer Woman (2005, TV movie) - John Landis

8. Basic Instinct (1992) - Paul Verhoeven

9. Bullitt (1968) - Peter Yates

10. The Guard (2011) - John Michael McDonagh


Another great cop movie reviewed by Film Excess to date:

Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0 (2007) - Len Wiseman 

Other good cop movies and a TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

21 Jump Street (2012) - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
48 Hrs. (1982) - Walter Hill 
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) -John Carpenter 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant (2009) - Werner Herzog 
Chungking Express (1994) - Wong Kar-Wai 
The Crimson Rivers/Les Rivières Pourpres (2000) - Mathieu Kassovitz 
The Dead Pool (1988) - Buddy Van Horn 
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) - John McTiernan 
The Pledge (2001) - Sean Penn 
True Detective - season 1 (2014) - Cary Fukunaga, Nic Pizzolato, creators

Mediocre, poor and/or failed cop movies reviewed to date by Film Excess (in alphabetic order):

16 Blocks (2006) - Richard Donner 
15 Minutes (2001) - John Herzfeld 
22 Jump Street (2014) - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller 
The Car (1977) - Elliot Silverstein 
Coogan's Bluff (1968) - Don Siegel 
Cop Out (2010) - Kevin Smith 
Crime Busters/I Due Superpiedi Quasi Piatti/Trinity: In Trouble Again/Two Supercops (1977) - E.B. Clucher 
Die Hard 2 (1990) - Renny Harlin 
The Enforcer (1976) - James Fargo 
The Heat (2013) - Paul Feig 
The Keeper of Lost Causes/Kvinden i Buret (2013) - Mikkel Nørgaard 
The Killer Inside Me (2010) - Michael Winterbottom 
Shutter Island (2010) - Martin Scorsese 

[34 titles in total]

Previous Top 10 lists:

The best action movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adapted movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date    
The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date

What do you think of the list?
Which cop movies would top your list?
Which cop movies are missing here?
Leave a comment and make your opinions known

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

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Impending danger is palpable on this poster for Michael Bay's 13 Hours

 

After the recent war effort of the West in Libya and the removal of dictator Gadaffi, the country breaks out in civil war. Of foreign powers, the US is subsequently just about the only country who tenaciously uphold small, fragile representations in Tripoli and Benghazi, - the latter of which gets attacked on September 11 2012 by Islamic terrorists.

13 Hours is written by Chuck Hogan (The Strain (2014-16)), based on Mitchell Zuckoff's (Robert Altman: The Oral Biography (2009)) nonfiction novel 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi (2014), and directed by Michael Bay (The Rock (1996)). Bay manages to convey the camaraderie among the tough security team, who are hired to handle the local security for the CIA. Several of the film's action sequences are fantastically exciting, full of Bay's familiar penchant for flashy camera tricks (cinematography by Dion Beebe (Into the Woods (2014))) and first-class stunt expertise. 

John Krasinski (Something Borrowed (2011)), James Badge Dale (Iron Man 3 (2013)) and the rest of the cast are credible and add both humor and seriousness to the tale, which is shocking in itself, - in particular the intense silence from Washington, D.C. and the Pentagon, as shit hits the fan for hour upon hour in Benghazi.

It is in the emotionally dense episodes of 13 Hours that Bay comes up short; they are handled with the crude hands of an action director who ventures into unknown territory. Unfortunately, they are many, melodramatic and rather inelegant, which is a shame, because 13 Hours is an otherwise compelling and important story of contemporary heroism, well worth watching.

 

Related reviews:

 

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

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

Michael Bay gives an interview about the film here

Cost: 50 mil. $

Box office: 69.4 mil. $

= Big flop

[13 Hours premiered January 12 (the AT&T Stadium, Texas) and runs 144 minutes. Mark Wahlberg was the initial choice for the lead, but he declined due to prior engagements. Filming took place in and around April 2015 in Malta and Morocco. The events portrayed in the film are contested but also remain politically highly controversial. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Ride Along 2 and holdover hits The Revenant and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, to a 16.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and grossed 52.8 mil. $ (76.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Taiwan with 1.3 mil. $ (9 %) and South Korea with 1 mil. $ (1.4 %). The film did especially poor abroad and is Bay's lowest-grossing film to date. In the US, Paramount targeted the release at conservatives, inviting Republican politicians to screenings, and the Texas premiere raised funds for the Shadow Warriors Project, which helps private security personnel among others. Libya's foreign minister and information and culture minister have attacked the film, - but note that Libya is recognized as a failed state. 13 Hours is rotten at 51 % with a 5.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 13 Hours?

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

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Martin Lawrence, Téa Leoni and Will Smith look simultaneously dangerous and silly on the poster for Michael Bay's Bad Boys

QUICK REVIEW:

The Miami Police's drug squad gets a huge problem, when a giant heroin bust gets busted from them. Detective Lowry and detective Burnett are put on the case.
Will Smith (Men in Black (1997)) and Martin Lawrence (Big Momma's House (2000)) are fun at their top game here, and Téa Leoni (Jurassic Park III (2001)) does well as the 3rd spice. Energetic performances and nice action goes a long way to make a good buddy action movie, and that is the case here. Many of the fun scenes between the two stars were improvised, (the script was not even written with two African-American cops in mind.)
The plot-line about Lawrence having to impersonate Smith is for the most part totally unmotivated in the film, which is pretty silly. Still, Bad Boys also features great music and stands tall as a very entertaining, 90's action comedy.
It was also the feature debut of director Michael Bay (Transformers (2007)), who has announced a third entry in the franchise for next year, (Bad Boys II came out in 2003 and is also a fun watch.)
Both Leoni and Lawrence are struggling career-wise today, while Smith can afford flops like After Earth (2013) and A New York's Winter Tale (2014) and still have huge upcoming leads coming his way. The reason, of course, is his 'track record' (the unprecedented number of blockbusters with him in the lead) which used to be phenomenal.

Related review:

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

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in Michael Bay's Bad Boys

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 19 mil. $
Box office: 141.4 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Bad Boys?
What do you think of Lawrence, Smith and Bay's more recent movies?

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

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+ Most Profitable Movie of the Year: 81.48 mil. $ range

Three Hollywood stars look defiant in the face of total destruction on this poster from another era, for Michael Bay's Armageddon

Armageddon is the film in which Bruce Willis (Death Wish (2018)) saves humanity from total annihilation by taking a deep core drilling gang to a meteor heading towards Earth and blowing it to pieces with an atomic bomb.

Armageddon is like an American kiss; an ecstatic mission impossible in space miraculously succeeds near the time of the millennium, when the good time 1990s were still in effect, all still relatively well in the Western world. It is written by Jonathan Hensleigh (Jumanji (1995)) and J.J. Abrams (Super 8 (2011)), with Tony Gilroy (The Great Wall (2016)), Shane Salerno (Celebrity (2000, TV movie)) and Robert Roy Pool (Outbreak (1995)) contributing, and directed by Michael Bay (The Rock (1996)).
The absurd team of unlikely worker-heroes of Armageddon include good actors like Michael Clarke Duncan (The Slammin' Salmon (2009)) and Steve Buscemi (Norman (2016)) and is led by an everyday superhero-like Willis, and they are all really cool, - on Earth. When they hit space, for maneuvers we are mostly served explosions and screaming men for a good 45 minutes, which takes it toll on a happy audience member's enthusiasm.
Armageddon is, as the trailer amply prepares you for, overly sentimental and junk in the sense that it is, strictly speaking, sheer baloney, (NASA even uses it as part of their management training program, and they have found at least 168 (!) scientific impossibilities in the film.) But it is also incredibly well-produced baloney, such as Jerry Bruckheimer-produced (Top Gun (1986)) films usually are.
So for anyone with a penchant for that unique oversimplification of the world that only a huge, American blockbuster can provide, Armageddon is a true must-see.

Related posts:

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

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

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

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

 

Watch the trailer for Armageddon in all its glory right here

Cost: 140 mil. $
Box office: 553.7 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 3.95 times its cost)
[Armageddon premiered 30 June (California) and runs 151 minutes. One story goes that a Disney production president took notes concerning Paramount's Deep Impact (1998) and devised Armageddon as a very similar counter film from Disney. Bruckheimer hired several more writers to rewrite and polish Hensleigh's original script. Shooting took place in South Dakota, Texas, including Houston, Florida, New Mexico, California, including Los Angeles, New York,  Istanbul, Turkey, India, France, including Paris, China, including Shanghai and in Mexico from August 1997 - January 1998. An extra 3 mil. $ were allotted the film's budget to create special effects to distinguish it from Deep Impact. 2.6 mil. $ were spent to advertise the film at the 1998 Super Bowl. The film opened #1 to a 36 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 3 weeks (#2-#3-#5) and grossed 201.5 mil. $ (36.4 % of the total gross). It was the highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide. It was nominated for 4 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Sound Effects to Saving Private Ryan, Visual Effects to What Dreams May Come, Song (Diane Warren: I Don't Want to Miss a Thing) to Stephen Schwartz for When You Believe from The Prince of Egypt, and Sound, also to Saving Private Ryan. It was also nominated for a Grammy. Roger Ebert gave it a 1/4 star review, translating to three notches harder than this review. The video release surpassed Pretty Woman (1990) to become Buena Vista Home Entertainment's top-selling live-action title. Bay returned with Pearl Harbor (2001). Willis returned in The Siege (1998). Armageddon is rotten at 38 % with a 5.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Armageddon?