Pain & Gain (2013)

There's nothing worse then a missed opportunity.

The outrageous story behind Pain & Gain, Michael Bay's latest flic which surprisingly doesn't feature the destruction of a city, is a great morality tale of what junked-up morons will do when they think they deserve it all.  This is a great story of the price of the American Dream and what it takes to achieve, and the movie even acknowledges Scarface and The Godfather as inspirations of people taking what they want.

Michael Bay has made half of a great movie.  Unfortunately, its directed by Michael Bay, who never had the touch for deft and subtle storytelling.

Mark Wahlberg plays Daniel Lugo, a fitness guru bored with where he is and wanting to make it better.  He enlists the help of another trainer (Anthony Mackie) and a reformed, Jesus loving ex-con (Dwayne Johnson) to kidnap a reach sandwich shop owner (Tony Shalhoub) because, well, he's a douche, and also he isn't committed to keeping his body in peak physical form.

It's a preposterous story that also happens to mostly true, and the cast really sells the material.  The only weak link is a Romanian stripper played by Bar Paly, but thats because the script does her no credit.  For a woman who got herself to America, she sure is dumb.  This is also a black comedy, which works most of the time, though there are a few gratuitous gross-out gags (one involving pubic hair, the other a trip to the bathroom gone wrong).  Overall though, there is the foundation in place for a great social satire on the American Dream.

But the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely is one of the laziest screenplays committed to film.  The film jumps perspectives like a Game of Thrones novel, and we got long, extended voice overs from each character describing who they are and what they're thinking.  Instead of letting us get to know these people, the film tells us who they are up front, and leaves no room for the relationships to be established.

Worse is Bay's style, with candy-saturated images that seem to come with the territory of setting a film in Miami.  The frenetic energy is fine for an hour, but the film feels longer then the two hours it is, and you're left exhausted by the end of it (though not as a exhausted as some of Bay's other films).  A more appropriate approach may have been to build the frenetic energy of the pace as the film moves along and the crimes the main characters commit become more heinous.  Instead, the film starts at one pitch and maintains it throughout.

None of this should come as a shock to anyone.  Mr. Bay has destroyed great material before, and why we thought this would be any better is beyond me.  I got what I wanted out of Pain & Gain; its completely off the wall, and features of a story stranger then fiction.  Unfortunately, Michael Bay made it, though in reality, it kind of is the perfect film for him to make.

In Memoriam: Roger Ebert

"I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear." - Roger Ebert

On Tuesday Ebert announced on his blog that he was going to take a leave of presence, but he wasn't done.  He had plans to release a revamped version of his website (which I assume will still happen), was going to fundraise for another season of At the Movies, and was ready to settle down and finally review only movies he wanted to review.  Now he is gone, but his presence as a film critic will continue to permeate our culture as more and more people discover his reviews and the sharp wit, yet personal touch they each exhibited.

Ebert loved movies, and his gift was the ability to eloquently and intelligently write reviews about each and every film he saw.  Whether you agreed with his overall assessment or not, you still had a blast reading what he thought anyways, and more often then not, you would see his point.  Ebert's greatest contribution was his long running Great Movie series, where he would write an essay about any given film or series every other week.  There are three books so far, and I suspect the final bunch will be cobbled together for a final Great Movies book.

That series, more then any other, has opened my eyes to many different films.  Through that series I discovered rare gems such as The Apu Trilogy, The Decalogue, Detour, Woman in the Dunes, and Out of the Past, among countless others.  Whenever I watch an old movie, I always check to see if they are among the Great Movies, not because all those movies are great, but because Ebert's essays make great companion pieces to better understand what makes this movie so special.

Of course there is his long, illustrious television career where he was co-host to a reviews show, first with Gene Siskel and then later with Richard Roeper.  Before Ebert took ill in 2006 and had to leave the show, I would try and watch every show I could (they aired fairly late on Saturday), and later reveled in the huge library of reviews the At the Movies provided us.  Sadly, after the show was cancelled the site shut down, and now you must search You Tube for any Siskel and Ebert reviews.

Ebert taught me the art of communicating my feelings and passions for a movie.  I remember engaging in long arguments about various films with a good friend back in High School, and these were all inspired by watching Ebert banter on his show.  Siskel and Ebert were a match made in heaven, and sadly none of the hosts brought in to replace them could ever quite measure up.

I knew this day was coming.  It's been looming ever since Ebert took ill back in 2006.  But that doesn't make it easier to realize and accept that one of the greatest critics who ever lived is gone.  Critics are generally a reviled bunch, as they make their living off of measuring other people's work and judging it.  And while Ebert had his share of scathing reviews, I know he enjoyed watching movies and discovering great ones more then reviewing bad ones.  It's a pleasure to find a great movie and share it with a friend, and that's what Ebert did for all of us these past 46 years.