Pain & Gain Movie Review

Regardless of what the weather tells us, the summer is not far from us. And that means intriguing summer movies. There are lot of movies I'm excited about this summer. I talked about that a bit in my first ever movie review that I did a couple weeks ago, "42 Movie Review: Jackie Robinson is a True American Hero". 42 was a great film and now it's time to review more movies. Maybe I will write a summer movie preview, I'm not sure. If you guys want it, I can make it happen. But let's talk about what film I saw tonight: Pain & Gain.

Pain & Gain stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in a true story. The first thing I want to say to everyone reading this, which is something I have to say due to all the younger people and church people I know that read this. I am in no way endorsing this movie. It is rated R and according to IMDB, it is "Rated R for bloody violence, crude sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use". If you are under the age of seventeen, do not see this. I'm not sure if I should say people that are seventeen or older should see it. It does contain a good amount of violence and sexual content. So basically, use your own judgment.

To everyone that the above message doesn't concern, I apologize. I just have to wise about who is reading my blog, and a lot of people that do read it are church people or people who aren't seventeen yet. But let's get to the movie.

So as I was saying, Mark Wahlberg and The Rock play body builders in a true story. Something a lot of people know about me is that I am a big Mark Wahlberg fan. He's a good actor and he's very entertaining to watch. Not to mention he is likely the best action star of this era. So I follow Mark Wahlberg pretty closely. I check on his Wikipedia page pretty often to see what movies he has coming soon. I remember last year reading about this one, but it didn't give out much details. I didn't know that this was a true story at the time or what would happen in it. All I knew was that some body builders would get themselves into some crime and that it was meant to be a dark comedy. 

So some time in the past few months I saw the trailer for this film. In the trailer it said, "this is a true story". So I looked up what happened and was horrified to hear of this terrible story. These three body builders in Miami- Anthony Mackie playing the third- kidnapped a millionaire and tortured him and later killed two people. I haven't researched this story very heavily, but knowing this had me worried about the film. It was being marketed as this comedy and it appeared that they were making light of the situation. So this had me nervous. 

But after I saw the movie tonight, you don't have to fear, because I think it does a good job of handling the situation. Granted, I wasn't someone who was involved in any of this, so it isn't really my place to say if it was offensive or not. However, I can say that I can see what director Michael Bay was trying to do here, and I think it worked.

Early on in the movie, the film starts like just about any other movie. There's humor in it, and people in the theater are laughing at it. Something I noticed was, as the movie goes on, the humor gets darker and darker. It's as if it's like a psychology experiment. It feels like we are sort of thinking the way they are. They want to live the American dream and they want to make money. It was like the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. Every time they did something bad, it would lead to something worse. Something that is talked about and hinted at is how they have used steroids. Perhaps their choice to use steroids at one point led to some of the things they did at first? I think what was good is how they show how one stupid decision can lead to another.

So these guys capture Victor Kershaw, played by Tony Shalhoub and torture him until he signs over all of his possessions to them. The Rock's character is very hesitant to doing these things at first. He is a former crack addict and was just released from prison. He became a Christian. One decision leads to another and eventually he starts drinking and using cocaine again. This was something that was sad to see. The Rock, by the way, did an extremely good job in this role and in this film. Very well-acted on his part. But anyway, these three guys get everything Kershaw owns and are very proud of their lives. They are thriving financially, picking up women left and right, and couldn't be happier with the way things turned out. However, when they thought they had killed Kershaw, he was still alive and he is now trying to get the body builders. When he tells his story to the police, they don't believe him and are also turned away because of how rude his is to them. Kershaw is a real jerk. However he gets a hold of this former detective, Ed Du Bois, played by Ed Harris, who is willing to work on the case because he thinks no one should be able to get away with this. Ed Harris gives one of the best performances in this film. He was fabulous.

Everything is going well for the body builders on the surface. They didn't think anything was going to happen to them and they even contemplated doing this to another millionaire. After some of them have troubles with their spending, they decide to find a new target. Long story short, that leads to the death of a man and a woman, which is when it starts to feel like stuff gets real. You don't feel like laughing at stuff as much anymore. Over the course of the movie you realize that these three guys aren't very likable and are scumbags.

Eventually the police find them all and they are proven guilty in a court case that was fourteen minutes long. The Rock's character testified against them all and was able to shorten his jail time to only seven years, while the others are locked away for life. I am leaving stuff out here, but I didn't want my recap of the film to be too long and if you were planning on seeing it, I wanted to save some elements for you to see for yourself. The three guys do some absurd stuff. It amazes me that this is all true for the most part. They were some disgusting human beings.

Again, this movie showcases the stupidity of people. It shows how one stupid decision can lead to another. Something it started to remind me of at one point is one of my favorite films, The Town. (SPOILER ALERT) At the end of The Town, three of four career criminals die and face the consequences for the lives they had been living. Ben Affleck's character escapes and is given a second chance. I won't talk too much about that movie. If you guys want, I will gladly write a review for The Town this summer. But the point of these two movies is that, you will have to pay the price for the things you've done.

When I watch movies, as a Christian, I try to find the gospel in what I'm watching. Are there any spiritual themes? How can this movie relate to the Christian faith or God? Something did stick out to me in this one. That was how these people think they're being so clever. They think they can get away with all the terrible things that they're doing, not knowing eventually, the truth will get out. As people, we think we can do whatever we want and no one will notice. But God sees everything. And there's no possible way to hide your sin from God.

There were some good themes in this movie. I hope people that try to advance by shoplifting, stealing or killing people watch this film and learn from it. There is some good stuff being taught in it. I thought Pain & Gain was a good movie. I'm not sure how good as I am still trying to digest all of this as I just came out of the theater a couple hours ago. But I thought it was a good film. Not great, but good. I think it was well-acted and well done. At the same time, it isn't a happy movie. It's a sad story. I wish it never happened. People might feel misled when they see this, as it isn't really a comedy. I didn't expect it to fully be once I found out that it was a true story. It has comedy and funny things in it, and they use that comedy to make a point. Did they do a good job of handling the situation? I think so. And I think it was a good film.


Well, this completes my second movie review. Definitely still got a lot of work to do for these reviews to make them the best they can be, but I hope I am making progress! As for the film, did you see Pain & Gain? What did you think of it? Do you think they handled the story well? Let me know. Comment, or hit me up on my Facebook fan page or on Twitter @vellvita7. Thank you for reading and hope you are having a good weekend!