Review: "Pain & Gain"

A movie might be based on real events, but the director doesn’t have to treat it what happened as gospel. A good example would be Tony Scott’s Domino, based on the real life Domino Harvey. The story is completely fictional (if you can follow it) but the filmmakers weren’t interested in telling a straight bio pic, opting instead to express her balls out personality through a fantastical tale. They didn’t get the truth of what happened, but rather the truth of her. And, for me, this is of most importance.

Now, a filmmaker doesn’t have to treat a person’s story as the final word, but a level of respect for the subjects involved doesn’t hurt. Unfortunately for the real life people behind Pain & Gain, Michael Bay is their storyteller.

The criminal acts of Daniel Lugo remind me of something straight out of a TV documentary; a bizarre and sordid series of events, featuring greedy sociopaths out for their dreams at all costs. Daniel was a con man, using charisma and quick thinking to gut people of as much money as he could get from them. Any opportunity to get a head, he took. He was also obsessed with fitness, working at a gym as a trainer. This guy, in a way, is the ultimate embodiment of American Capitalism. He gets two gym regulars to join him on a poorly thought out kidnapping of a wealthy man, which, despite their best “efforts”, actually nets them some coin. But, instead of stopping there, they get the itch to go again...

Throughout the movie, it’s made clear that what we are watching actually happened (a title scroll appears a few times, at very odd moments). However, I’m sure that some things were changed up to fit with the vision of the movie. But, I’m not really concerned with that. What got me most was the tone. The trailers billed this as if Daniel was gonna be some kind of anti hero, taking away from a guy that doesn’t deserve it. While the movie is mostly from the perspective of the criminals (occasionally shifting to narration from other characters), there really aren’t any reasons to like these guys at all. They are truly despicable people, caring only about themselves. To feature them as protagonists (and having well liked actors play them) is a pretty bold move.

And Michael Bay is a pretty bold guy. He presents the story with his usual blend of superficial humor - like what you would expect from Crank, but on a more juvenile level - which completely messed with the head of the audience. The crowd I watched this with did not know how to react. Do we laugh when they fail to kill a drunk Tony Shalhoub? Is "Ha Ha! The priest has the hots for The Rock!" an appropriate response in a movie where a couple is dismembered and stuffed into barrels? It was really fun experiencing something so conflicting.

So, with a movie based on real events, told with the criminals as the leads and in a darkly comedic style, does Michael Bay care about the victims or not? More importantly, should a filmmaker care? Martin Scorsese’s Casino featured a real life hitman, staging the very hit he did in real life. It was an almost abhorrent casting choice, but it plays out quickly and ugly - probably how it actually happened. Hannibal Lecter is shown as being intelligent and charismatic, but will also kill if given the chance. The exploits of Lugo and his meathead friends are awful and disturbing, but expressed with an almost “can you believe this happened” kind if chuckle. Bay couldn't care less about whose feelings he's hurting, as long as he's amused. And that amuses me.

A director doesn’t HAVE to care about the real life participants or show respect, but it would be nice. Michael Bay, however, is probably not a nice guy. Wrecking balls as robot testicles shows what he thinks of his audience, and Pain & Gain shows that he’s willing to prank them with something odd and confounding. And, you know what, I relate to that. Maybe I shouldn’t treat this movie as the gospel of Michael Bay, but...

4/5 *s

Review: "Southland Tales"

[The original script] was more about making fun of Hollywood. But now it's about, I hope, creating a piece of science fiction that's about a really important problem we're facing, about civil liberties and homeland security and needing to sustain both those things and balance them.

a tapestry of ideas all related to some of the biggest issues that I think we're facing right now . . . alternative fuel or the increasing obsession with celebrity and how celebrity now intertwines with politics.

[Southland Tales] will only be a musical in a post-modern sense of the word in that it is a hybrid of several genres. There will be some dancing and singing, but it will be incorporated into the story in very logical scenarios as well as fantasy dream environments.

                                                                                               - Richard Kelly

The director of "Donnie Darko" certainly can't be called someone with a lack of vision. But, what exactly are his eyes trained on? And, is he seeing the world through a kaleidoscope?

Southland Tales (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I first read the synopsis for "Southland Tales", I got really excited with what could've potentially been the best comedy since "Dr. Strangelove". Basically, the epicenter of the end of days is Hollywood and our hero is an amnesiac action star trying to get a screenplay that he co wrote with a porn star made. This could've been SO much fun.

Instead, what I (and the studio) got was the equivalent of witnessing a first year film student burning money in a trashcan for over 2 hours.

I should note that even though I own this movie on DVD, I am not re watching it for this review. Instead, I'll be going on memory - sad, frustrated, disappointed memory:

A few years after a nuclear attack on Texas, the U.S. has become a full blown police state, keeping it's citizens under constant surveillance. Yet, this invasion of privacy is unable to track the most famous movie star in the world (who walks around in broad daylight), who has been shacked up with a porn star, who has ties with an underground organization bent on overthrowing the government, who also has vague ties with a mad scientist that has created a new energy, which may also be responsible for a rip in the fabric of space time, which threatens to...

...convolute everything. Man, was it hard to sit through this. Kelly crafted such an awesome story in "Donnie Darko", I thought he could pull it off in his second time out. That film - though with a smaller budget - similarly dealt with very unique personalities part of a larger story. Both stories are about mysterious situations and how the characters weave in and out of them. But, where DD succeeded, ST failed miserably. It lacked a certain focus, and seemed to confuse ambiguity with brilliance.

You know the phrase "your eyes are bigger than your stomach" in reference to a kid who can't finish his meal? That sums up this production. The ambitions are grand - taking on such political and even religious themes - but it's handled as if it'll just work itself out in the end. With a budget under $20 million and some higher profile stars to deal with, I suspect that Kelly was too busy carrying everything on his shoulders, that he let some important things fall to the wayside. What a shame.

This is the only explanation that makes sense to me. His feature after this one was "The Box", which was pretty entertaining and weird. And "Domino" - which he only wrote - was constructed very well despite it's big story. So, Kelly is certainly capable of excellent work, he just was in over his head a bit.

I've read in interviews that he's quite proud of "Southland Tales". No, for real. Hopefully, it's because he learned something from the experience. If not, then he's just lying to us and himself.

This review was requested by a friend on my blog's facebook page (look to the right of this page). If you have anything you'd like me to watch and criticize, feel free to suggest something. And if Richard Kelly happens to be reading this, please take no offense - I honestly can't wait for your next movie.

1/5 *'s