Pain & Gain Review

Justin and I saw Pain & Gain on April 28, 2013!! When I first saw the trailer for this, I knew it was based off factual events. I didn't think I would end up enjoying this as it seemed like it would strictly be a comedy. Luckily, I was proven wrong and absolutely loved every second of this insane thrill ride. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this actually was. It ended up being a serious, intense dramatic telling of the real life events that provided the material for the movie. It was a dark movie that really brought me into the story right away. I am not a huge fan of Michael Bay, but I know he has the ability to make good movies, and this kind of went back to his roots with Bad Boys. The events in the movie take place between October of 1994 to June of 1995. The movie revolves around Daniel Lugo, a bodybuilder that works at Sun's Gym as a personal trainer, with his good friend Adrian Doorbal. Lugo enjoys the gym and the clients he makes friends with including his new client Victor Kershaw. His talks with Kershaw and bills piling up lead him to think of ways to achieve the American dream. He is tired of being poor. A seminar with Jonny Wu causes him to keep on Kershaw about his money/investments. He and Adrian realize that in order to make it in America, they can get Kershaw's money. They encounter Paul Doyle, a man that served a stint in prison, and recently had tried to change his life through Jesus and AA. From here, the three create a Sun's Gym gang to extort money from Kershaw. They concoct a plan (though they are all really dumb, particularly Lugo, who really doesn't think at all) to kidnap Kershaw and torture him to give them his money/property/assets. We get an insight into each of the three main characters, and we see that Paul is not really on board early on. It's only when he becomes involved further with Lugo's insanity that things start getting out of hand. These bumbling fools eventually are able to get what they want through really unscrupulous methods. It leads to problems with law enforcement and Kershaw. Due to the crazy world that Lugo reintroduced Paul to he isn't thinking straight. He concocts a plan to pull off another heist. The rest of the movie from here really becomes a captivating cornucopia of crazy twists and bloodshed. I personally believe this could be Mark Wahlberg's best movie role to date. He was so into the Daniel Lugo character, and you could see it in the dialogue. He delivered it with such fire that he became the person. I was extremely impressed. I think the star of this movie was undoubtedly Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Paul. There were so many excellent dynamics to his character to the man that found Jesus and struggling with sobriety to the crazy world that Lugo reintroduced to him with money, drugs, and women. He put alot into this role to show how versatile he is. I think this also was one of Johnson's best movie roles. He was larger than life in this movie. He stole so many scenes, and its great to see from somebody you've always liked. His character is actually one that you feel like you can support throughout the movie. It was really cool to see The Rock share the screen with Kurt Angle for one more fight as well. Nice cameo by one of my all time favorite wrestlers. Rock and Angle have great chemistry from Rock's 2000-2001WWE  run. I thought Angle's cameo was perfect, because he was just a guy that fights you. It was simple and it worked. Anthony Mackie did an excellent job as Adrian as well. He followed Lugo's lead, but still always had some doubts about what they were doing. The scenes around the last half hour really showed how good Mackie is. Tony Shalhoub did a great job as the rich jerk that people want to see fall, but they balanced it well because they made Lugo so animated. Wahlberg made Lugo more hated than Kershaw through intense facial expressions and passionate dialogue. The cast, adaptation of real life events, dramatic atmosphere speckled with comedic moments, and presenting a movie opposite that the trailer presented successfully make this a 5/5. Everybody in this movie did an incredible job. I have to commend Michael Bay for how well he did with this. I should also throw in it's always great to hear Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise-which was actually a big hit in 1995. I'd definitely recommend this. You will not believe how intense this gets, especially during the last half hour. The whole movie is a thrill ride, because each scene presents something that really will shock you. Remember, this movie is inspired by true events and it's so surreal to know that these events happened to real life individuals.