Pain & Gatsby

*Pain & Gain entered and left the theaters without much fanfare, but now that it's out on video (along with The Great Gatsby) I wanted to compare the two films.  Major SPOILERS for both films follow.

Something occurred to me as I was watching Pain & Gain on DVD: the Michael Bay-directed Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson movie is surprisingly comparable to The Great Gatsby.  I don't simply mean the Baz Luhrmann overly stylized Gatsby, either.  I mean the actual novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  (For my purposes, however, I will include that recent adaptation because it helps my argument.) 

Let's start with the American dream which Wahlberg's character, Daniel Lugo, talks about in the film (ironically telling a judge that there are no shortcuts to it).  Also, the tagline of Pain & Gain is "Their American Dream Is Bigger Than Yours."  In my initial review, I compared Pain & Gain to Scarface because of the drugs and blatant criminality of most of the characters along with the perversion of the American dream (and Lugo mentions Scarface as a personal hero).  I still think that comparison is apt since both stories are essentially about how wrong you can go in your pursuit of what you think the American dream is.  Gatsby fits in because that story is about the death of that dream. 

Jay Gatsby is a character that rises from nothing and makes a fortune through illegal means.  His pursuit goes beyond finance and into unreachable territory as he strives to recreate a past love with Daisy that has moved on.  He sees a green light as a metaphor for this unreachable dream.  His failure to reclaim what was once a beautiful moment shows that the American dream in general is unachievable when it becomes an idea rather than a tangible goal. 

Daniel Lugo is not after some lost love in Pain & Gain, but his downfall is just the same.  He simply holds money and status in such a high regard that he is incapable of sustaining it.  Becoming the man on the riding lawnmower was his tangible goal, but once he reached it, he realized it didn't really give him what he wanted: a feeling of legitimacy.  It seems cheap to make the comparison (but get used to it, this is going to be filled with cheap comparisons), but Lugo's green light was a riding lawnmower.  Once Gatsby had Daisy, he seemed to realize that the green light represented nothing now that he had seemed to achieve his dream.  As soon as Lugo, now Tom Lawn, gets on that lawnmower, he should have been content, instead he wanted more.  The lawnmower had become, simply, a lawnmower.

The similarities between Gatsby and Lugo don't end with the American dream.  Both characters get their money illegally, Gatsby through bootlegging and Lugo from fraud.  They both change their names when they gain their wealth.  James Gatz becomes Jay Gatsby.  Daniel Lugo becomes Tom Lawn.  Say what you will about Lugo's improvised name, at least it's vast departure from his real name, unlike Gatz to Gatsby...  They also seem to be equally charismatic.  Lugo may be much more obviously full of crap than Gatsby, but he seems to easily fool the people onscreen. 

Step aside, DiCaprio...let Marky Mark handle this.

If Lugo is Gatsby, then who is Nick Carraway?  Since Nick acts as the storyteller of Gatsby, this is difficult as nearly every single character in Pain & Gain serves as narrator at some point.  If you look to Nick as the moral compass of Gatsby, though, then I suppose Paul (Dwayne Johnson) fits best.  He appears to be the voice of reason early on ("You can't just kidnap a guy and take his stuff! That is so illegal!") and becomes corrupted by Lugo.  As an ex-con, he is much more susceptible to corruption than Carraway was, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he is somewhat seduced by Lugo's charm and friendship only to end up being used, just as Gatsby used Nick. 

This is where the film version of Gatsby helps out a bit more.  In that adaptation, Nick is telling the story from an asylum, apparently suffering a breakdown caused (at least partly) by alcohol addiction.  Paul is a recovering alcohol/drug addict who falls off the wagon because of his association with Lugo.  So Gatsby turned Nick into a drunk, and Lugo nudged Paul back into addiction. 

Paul is a much easier fit as Nick when you factor in his newly found faith.  His gullibility and well-meaning attitude is a dead ringer for Nick.  Religion does not play much of a factor in Gatsby, but Nick is certainly seen as the slightly innocent character among a crew of despicable people.  (Of course, he's telling the story, so he comes across as the good person.)  Paul seems that way, too...at first.  And finally, there is one more side comparison with Paul as Nick.  In the novel, Nick has a drunken evening and at one point ends up bedside with a photographer.  It is not clearly explained, and some have speculated a homosexual interpretation to the passage.  Paul has his run-in with homosexuality, as well.  His priest/landlord hits on him, and Paul seems enthralled by all of the homosexual sex toys in the warehouse.  Sure, most of the stuff in Pain & Gain is played for juvenile homophobic laughs, but it makes sense on a story level when compared to Gatsby.

Yup, dead ringer for Tobey Maguire.

The wheels don't fall off of this comparison once you move past the similarities between the two main characters, but it definitely starts to get low on gas.  But I'll continue anyway as I did find a few interesting similarities.

Lugo as Gatsby and Paul as Nick keeps things nice and neat, but when trying to find other character crossovers, it gets messy.  I suppose Victor Kershaw could be Tom and his money could be Daisy since Lugo is at odds with him and tries to take away what is his.  And Myrtle could be the stripper that Lugo "gives" to Paul, but that doesn't really work since she should be with Victor in that comparison...and who's Wilson?  See what I mean?  But there is a clear commonality with cars.  In both stories, a character gets hit by a car near the end: Myrtle in Gatsby, and Lugo in Pain.  They are different circumstances and characters and all, but still...

The point of both Pain & Gain and The Great Gatsby, however, is quite clear and nearly identical.  Pain warns the audience of seeking the fast way to the dream and shows that the dream isn't what it's cracked up to be anyway.  Gatsby is about the death of the dream in very much the same way as Gatsby dies in his pursuit, and Nick is left jaded (and committed, in the movie). 

Putting an end to this rambling comparison, I just found it interesting that a film many people have found forgettable, pointless, offensive, or simply awful can quite easily be compared to what some call the great American novel.  Both Pain & Gain and the recent adaptation of The Great Gatsby nearly stylize the point out of each story, but it's still there.  And while Pain & Gain will never be considered a great work of art, at the very least Michael Bay's latest deserves a second look, which is more than can be said about his Transformers series.

Michael Bay's Surprising and Darkly Funny Return to the 90s

Directed by Michael Bay, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, starring Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie, Dwayne Johnson, Ed Harris, and Tony Shalhoub - Rated R

 

 

This is a comedy the Kurgan would like, which says all kinds of messed up things about me...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a long time since director Michael Bay made a film that didn’t involve giant fighting robots, and it’s about time. Nothing against the Transformers movies, but I’ve always felt that Bay could’ve stopped after the first film and just produced the next few. Instead Bay stayed on for the whole trilogy, and he’s even starting up a new Transformers movie for his next directing job. So Pain & Gain, unfortunately, is only a pit stop for Bay between robot movies.

 

I say “unfortunately” because Pain & Gain is an entertaining and interesting film from a director who had become quite predictable over the years, and it would be nice if this became the norm for Bay. The film, based on one of those true stories that prove reality is indeed stranger than fiction, is dark comedy at its best: disturbing.

 

Reviewing a comedy is tricky, and I’ve actually come to the point that I will not even review most comedies because it’s all about the viewer’s sense of humor. But Pain & Gain is more than just a comedy. The true story angle sets it apart.

 

Pain & Gain is based on the series of articles of the same name written by Miami Times reporter Pete Collins. Of course, true stories get changed as characters are merged, dates change, and events are altered. But screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely stay surprisingly faithful to the basic outline of the events. If you’re a stickler for the details, just read the articles online; it’s a fascinating read and, at times, even crazier than the movie’s version of events.

 

The too crazy to believe true story is a very dark, twisted series of events. (Stop reading now if you don’t want the story slightly spoiled.) In the mid-90s a personal trainer/scam artist named Daniel Lugo, along with assorted friends and acquaintances, kidnapped a local Miami businessman and forced him to sign over all of his wealth. Emboldened by this first “success” the group tries again with disastrous results. That doesn’t sound all that crazy until you come across the finer points in the story. Some of the actions of the people involved defy belief. Police officers ignore blatant evidence of the kidnapping, a man survives being blown up and ran over, body parts are barbecued out in the open, etc. And that’s all stuff that actually happened. Toss in some movie-only craziness involving a sex toy warehouse, cocaine, and a severed toe and you’re in for some wacky moments.

 

That could be a problem for some viewers. Not only is this a grisly story, but it’s also told for laughs. Actual people died. When you keep that in mind, it’s hard to laugh. Maybe I’m a terrible person, but I found Pain & Gain quite funny, even more so as things got dark and twisted in the end. As a dark comedy, this film is a success…for people with my sense of humor, anyway. That said, dark comedies are extremely hit and miss depending on the viewer, so I can understand why some people might hate it.

 

It might also rub people the wrong way because Daniel Lugo, played by Mark Wahlberg, is treated almost like the hero of the film. He’s a guy who just wants the American dream, which, to him, means being buff and rich. He has the buff part down, but the rich part is something he has to take. I did have issues with this guy being treated as the protagonist at first. Then I remembered Scarface and many other gangster films in which the audience is kind of expected to root for the “bad guy.” It’s just that this bad guy is based on a real terrible person. The American dream aspect of the movie makes up for that, however. Scarface spawned an entire subculture that glorifies a twisted idea of the American dream. To be fair, that’s not the point of Scarface, but many fans of that film have failed to notice. With Pain & Gain, there is no mistaking that Daniel Lugo is an idiot and someone to be ridiculed. He is a sociopath whose actions make clear that the American dream can be quite dangerous if interpreted a certain way. Will everyone walk away from the film with that message? No, but I doubt that you’ll hear people quoting Lugo as often as people quote Tony Montana.

 

Daniel Lugo may not go down as one of cinema’s great antiheros, but that doesn’t mean Wahlberg does a bad job. He’s perfect for the role of a muscle-bound optimist. He carries the film with ease, but his cohorts provide the most fun. Anthony Mackie cracked me up constantly with his fast rants about getting buff. And Dwayne Johnson was the best part of the film because of his meltdown in the second half. He seems to be in a completely different movie than the rest of the cast the last hour, and it’s hilarious. The rest of the cast is superb, as well, with Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub, Rob Corddry, and Rebel Wilson making appearances. Even Ken Jeong, who I find nearly unbearable these days, had me laughing as an obnoxious self-help guru.

 

Add Michael Bay’s direction to these proceedings and you’re left with the most surprisingly enjoyable film of the year thus far. Bay could’ve destroyed this movie easily if he had turned it into an action fest, but he didn’t. Instead, he basically made his version of Tony Scott’s Domino. The similarities between the two films are hard to ignore. Both are based on unbelievable true stories in the mid-90s and are helmed by directors who often let style get in the way of substance. Bay has made the better film because Pain & Gain takes the more comedic tone. Domino attempted to be relatively serious, and it was all too crazy to care that much about. Pain & Gain has a story that could be taken very seriously, but it would be very hard not to laugh at some of the true moments. Thankfully, Bay and company embraced that. Does he still whip the camera around too often and employ too much slow-mo? Yeah, but trust me, the action and plot are much easier to follow in this film than in his previous Transformers work.

 

Despite my eventual enjoyment, I was on the fence about Pain & Gain the first hour or so. There were far too many characters with voice-over. The anachronistic bits, like the Taco Bell box, a wireless videogame controller, etc. took me out of it. It just seemed to be a mess of a film. Somehow in that last hour it all made sense. It’s still a mess of a film, but the characters are train-wrecks, so how could the plot not get messy? The true story is convoluted, so why wouldn’t the movie be as well? The messiness of it is what got me laughing consistently by the end of the film. It was equal parts hilarity and befuddlement. That’s entertainment to me. Just try not to dwell on the fact that most of the stuff in this movie actually happened.

 

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

 

While I am quite tired of Bay's now obligatory camera-doing-a-360-through-two-rooms gimmick, I laughed a lot at the absurdity of the two vastly different actions taking place.  On one side, Marky Mark is killing a guy.  On the other, The Rock is putting on a push-up display while C&C Music Factory blares. 

 

Speaking of The Rock, shouldn't he have been limping a bit more since he was missing a toe?  Or is coke that powerful?  Or is it simply that The Rock is that powerful?

 

The anachronisms bothered me, but I still dug some of the 90s elements of the movie.  The car phones, the above-mentioned music, etc.  Although, for the most part, this film felt like it took place in present day. 

Michael Bay Should've Stayed in the 90s

"Look upon my works, ye Mighty..."

Allow me to confess first and foremost that I honestly enjoy nearly all of Michael Bay's films to one degree or another, but this is not going to be a rundown of his entire filmography, nor is it going to be a pre-review of Pain & Gain.  It's just that when I first found out that his new film would be set in the 90s, it clicked with me as something that made sense for Bay now that he's taking a break from the giant robots.

The 1990s belonged to directors like Michael Bay.  Sure, there's an article making the rounds about him apologizing for Armageddon (of course, that article is misleading in that Bay is really just saying that the film was rushed and could've been more fine-tuned), but Bay really knew what he was doing during that decade.  Looking back, I realize that I miss (most) of Bay's pre-Transformers films.  I'm just not sure what happened to change things.  Is it the modern audience?  Is it because of the center stage terrorism has taken since films like The Rock?  Is it just that Bay has always been a weak director, and it took a few movies to realize it?  Is it simply the internet's fault?  Whatever it is, it appears that Bay has realized that the 90s were a better a time for him as his latest film, Pain & Gain, takes place during that decade and appears to be more in the vein of a film like Bad Boys than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. 

If Bay is trying to capture the feeling of the 90s again, then I hope he succeeds.  As a child of the 90s, I am very nostalgic for films like The Rock and Bad Boys that seem to have this 90s-vibe.  That feeling that things were great and would only get better.  Of course, this could just be the feeling I attribute to the 90s because it was the time of my youth when anything was still possible.  Either way, films by guys like Michael Bay always make me reminisce about better, simpler times.  This was the time when the action movie had reached it's apex of fun.  Today, action movies have to be either completely serious, or over-the-top goofy (The Expendables series attempts to recapture this essence, but really just ends up beign another modern serious action movie with random moments of humor tossed in).  Movies like Bad Boys could feature serious action along with ridiculous banter between the stars, and it somehow made sense.  The 90s action movies were great because there was no nitpicking.  They were just good, innocent fun. 

I suppose every generation can say the same thing about their youthful decade, but the 90s deserves attention now because so few films have tried to capture that essence.  Look at the plethora of 70s and 80s movies that have come out (and are still coming out).  What 90s films are there?  Domino?  That hardly counts because even though Tony Scott was a 90s director, that film definitely did not feel like a 90s movie.  I suppose Alpha Dog was slightly successful in that regard.  And Lord of War had some segments that got it right.  But aside from that, not many films have even attempted to be a "90s movie."  Perhaps that's a good thing.  Does anyone really want to see their beloved decade given the stereotype treatment that the 70s and 80s have received? 

More to the point, can Michael Bay recapture that spirit with his new movie?  I hope so.  Movies like Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon will always trigger certain memories in me.  Are they great films that hold up well?  Not really.  I don't even own any of them (and I buy almost anything I even slightly like).  But there's still something I love about them.  Criterion apparently has the same nostalgia problem that I have, as they have, believe it or not, released versions of Armageddon and The Rock.  Yup, Michael Bay has two films in the Criterion collection.  Although I have noticed that they haven't upgraded them to blu ray yet.  Maybe they're embarrassed by what they liked in the 90s, I know I am sometimes (hey, Ace of Base, what's up?).

But all good things must end.  Bay's first film of the new millennium was Pearl Harbor, but I that film doesn't matter all that much as far as I'm concerned.  First, I didn't care for it (it is my least favorite of his movies) because I found it to be a sugar coated, bland version of history.  Second, it's a period piece, and Bay is not meant to direct a film set that far in the past.  This minor misstep was confirmed as just that when Bad Boys II came out. 



"Hey guys, I'm going to ride this thing right
back to the 90s!  Anyone want me to pick
them up a Zima?"

The 90s truly ended for me with 9/11, but they ended much later for Michael Bay.  Bad Boys II, released in 2003, is essentially a 90s movie.  It's a fun buddy cop movie with over-the-top action.  Martin Lawrence and Will Smith exchange jokes during shootouts almost non-stop.  It actually gets awkward at times because the banter goes on too long, which is kind of the joke.  But it seems natural, even in a post-9/11 movie world.  In fact, 9/11 does get mentioned in the film, but only as the reason why the cops have updated technology.  Aside from that mention, the tone of this filmis decidedly 90s.  I enjoyed this film immensely, although it helped usher in two issues I have with action films now: it was twenty minutes too long and it felt the need to send the protagonists to Latin America, which seems to happen in at least one action movie each year now (nothing against Latin America, but having the bad guy's fortress there in so many action movies is getting old).  

The 90s continued for Michael Bay as he made The Island. This was Bay's first borderline bomb (it ended up making more than its budget with worldwide box office included).  This sci-fi film wasn't marketed all that well, wasn't based on any toy-line or easily identifiable high concept (like blowing up an asteroid), and it featured two stars who weren't (and still aren't) capable of carrying a big summer movie on their own.  It's still a very decent and fun movie if you give it a chance.  And even though it takes place in the future, it still feels like the 90s.

Then the Transformers showed up.  I have actually enjoyed all of the Transformers movies, though I had grown very tired of them by the third film (the first is still by far my favorite).  Bay has still not lost his 90s sensibilities, it's just that this series downplayed them to near nonexistence.  Bay's previous films focused on the characters.  Sure, they weren't terribly realistic, but they were usually likable and funny, at least.  When the robots showed up and started destroying everything in sight, the humans took a backseat.  And why shouldn't they?  Aren't the most pointless parts of that trilogy the moments when the group of soldiers run around with their guns thinking they can actually do something?  So why give any traits to the characters.  I honestly think Optimus Prime is a more fleshed out character than Sam Witwicky, the guy whose only character trait is to run around and complain about getting/keeping/losing his mannequin girlfriend.  Stuff blows up all nice and pretty in those films, but I want to see some likable funny humans again.

So the 90s ended for Michael Bay with the release of The Island.  His filmmaking style hadn't changed all that much, but the response to his films had.  These films all make money, so the audience is still there, it's just that they have become more and more vocally negative towards them.  This is a combination of the internet and changing values in cinema.  If someone hate The Rock back in the 90s, you only knew about it from talking to them personally.  If someone hates Transformers: Dark of the Moon, you can find a few thousand negative comments/reviews in a matter of seconds.  It has become fashionable to hate Michael Bay (which must mean that soon, if not already, it will become fashionable to like him again). 

Despite the new hatred and technology, Bay has been making essentially the same films, just with a focus on giant toy robots.  That series truly ended the 90s for Bay.  So yeah, Transformers was the 9/11 of Bay's career, but only in the sense that it ended the 90s for him. 

"Hey Mike, I'm real excited about doing another Bad Boys, but I am not physically capable of
morphing into a semi.  What are you talking about?  Jerry, will you please rein him in?"

I think Bay has finally realized this, at least for a moment.  He did make Pain & Gain, which certainly seems to be a much more grounded film.  I'm sure it contains some ridiculous elements, but I imagine they are more along the lines of Bad Boys than Transformers.  I am extremely excited for this movie.  I honestly think it's going to be the first true Michael Bay movie since Bad Boys II.  I still think the guy is capable of a good 90s movie.  I don't necessarily mind the new Bay with his robots, but I want to feel some nostalgia when I watch his movies. 

Maybe I'm giving Bay too much credit for what his films are like, though.  This article could also be called "Bring Back Bruckheimer!"  Producer Jerry Bruckheimer was along for most of Bay's better movies.  Alas, he is not involved with Pain & Gain, so that one's looking a little less interesting.  Here's hoping that rumored third Bad Boys movie actually happens.

Unfortunately, Pain & Gain is going to be the only taste of 90s I get from Bay for some time.  He's already going to back to Transformers for his next movie.  Who knows, maybe some time spent back in the 90s will revive him a bit, and we'll get the best Transformers yet.  Or maybe it's like reality, and the 90s are gone for good.  If that's so, I guess I can always buy the Criterion copies of a couple "classic" Michael Bay movies.