"Pain & Gain" is the Best Michael Bay Movie

I despise the "Transformers" movies. They pander to a sensibility completely contrary to my own, with their adolescent male obsessions with hot chicks and sleazy self-obsessed heroes. Through a combination of poor timing and rotten luck, I've been obliged to sit through all three "Transformers" movies so far. And yet, I often liked the Michael Bay action spectaculars of yore, particularly "The Rock" and "The Island." When I heard that Bay had signed a deal to direct the fourth "Transformers" movie in exchange for being able to make a smaller, original project, "Pain & Gain," I was cautiously optimistic. Would we get the old, more restrained Michael Bay back? The answer is no, definitely not. However, "Pain & Gain" is by far the best and most bizarre Michael Bay movie ever.

Miami body-building professional and con man Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) decides that his quickest path to the American dream is to abduct one of his fitness clients, a scuzzy rich man named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), and make him give Daniel all his money. The plan is half-baked, but with the help of fellow body-building pals Paul (Dwayne Johnson) and Noel (Anthony Mackie), Daniel goes ahead with it. This leads to a string of unlikely events, that private detective Ed DuBois (Ed Harris) is charged with piecing together to discover the truth. Also in the mix are the gang's stripper associate Sorina (Bar Paly), an underhanded gym owner John (Rob Corddry), Noel's naughty nurse girlfriend Robin (Rebel Wilson), and Ken Jeong as motivational speaker Johnny Wu.

"Pain & Gain" is based on a real series of crimes that happened in the '90s, which the film is keen to remind the audience of at a key point in the film. It is heavily fictionalized and exaggerated, though, making the three dunderheaded perpetrators far more likeable and outrageous than they were in real life, and playing up the oddity of their crimes. Even cursory Googling about what actually happened makes it clear that Michael Bay's version bearbears little resemblance to reality. There's been some controversy about the recklessness with which Bay has made claims about the film's truthfulness, but considering how easy it is to find out what really happened, I don't think there's much negative impact on the experience on the film itself, where the parts that actually are true are hard enough to swallow as it is.

Also, Bay's approach to the film is so over-the-top and so high-voltage, "Pain & Gain" cna't be anything but self-parody. It gets a lot of mileage out of poking fun at a variety of badass action movie tropes. Here the criminals are in many ways the prototypical Bay heroes: overgrown, immature, musclebound, and self-entitled. They pant after scantily-clad women and have terrible impulse-control. They spin elaborate tales of self-aggrandizement, based on the common narratives of American success: capitalist self-actualization, spiritual enlightenment, and salvation through newly forged family ties. The heinous nature of their crimes is attributed more to stupidity and carelessness than any real malice on their part. Still, there's no question that Bay thinks these guys are utterly awful human beings.

The self-awareness also extends to the rest of the film. If you thought Bay's recent output has been crass and crude and spent too much time ogling the female form, "Pain & Gain" pushes it to comedic extremes. Partially naked ladies and sex paraphernalia are a full-blown visual motif, appearing all over the film. The writing nails the attitude and the mindset of a certain breed of hypermasculine American male. Our bodybuilder protagonists talk like they never leave the locker room, their dialogue laced with testosterone and self-improvement catchphrases. The violence is either ineffectual or cringe-inducing, played for laughs as often as it's played for thrills. Even the filmmaking takes potshots at itself, making constant use of the frenetic, MTV-style editing that Bay made famous in "Armageddon."

The actors are all great sports. Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie make fools of themselves with gleeful abandon, but there are scenes where they are genuinely frightening in their ignorance and amorality. Dwayne Johnson's does an absolutely brilliant twist on his usual screen persona, starting out as the most friendly, empathetic, and soft-hearted of the trio, and then spiraling out of control as drugs and delusion take hold. And then there's Tony Shalhoub, playing one of the most unlikeable scumbags to every grace a Michael Bay film, and considering the scumbag quotient of the "Transformers" films that's saying something.

"Pain & Gain" is no masterpiece. It's over-eager and transparent in its aims. The content is terribly self-indulgent, even if it is supposed to be satirical. There are tone and story issues, and a couple of places where the filmmaking choices are as bizarre as the crimes being depicted. It frequently feels like Michael Bay is trying too hard and overreaching, but it's heartening to see that he is trying. "Pain & Gain," weird and flawed as it is, has some admirable ambitions. It's actually about something besides easy entertainment and excess for the sake of excess - though it is very entertaining.

And it's also the best damn thing Michael Bay has ever made.
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