Painfully Gained

If there’s one thing director Michael Bay knows, it’s how to excite people. For nearly twenty years, he has been devising methods to burst our collective eardrums and flash-fry our optical nerves with visual and aural verve, always striving to pack theaters with folks looking for their next fix of thrills and explosions and everything awesome. He’s also one of the most commercially successful directors in Hollywood, and while he has been known to occasionally back the wrong horse (does anybody remember The Island?) and his movies have never been truly good, his care spent on special effects and crowd-pleasing elements are a huge reason his legacy ought to remain intact.

But while he’s probably best-known right now for the computer-generated antics of his Transformers trilogy (with a fourth on the way), one might forget that he actually started off with more grounded action films like Bad Boys, which blended violence and comedy in such a unique way that it did much to create the modern action genre as we know it. Hence Pain & Gain, with his smallest budget in over a decade, which tells the insanely true story of bodybuilders and criminals Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), and Adrian Dorbal (Anthony Mackie). The Sun Gym Gang, as they became known, hatched and executed a plan to kidnap and rob Miami businessman Tony Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), eventually attempting to kill the man when the dirty business was concluded. But their fortune was not due to last, and their empire came crashing down not long after.

Just say No, kids...

This isn’t a typical Michal Bay production, relying less on gnarly explosions and more on character development to push the story forward. Unfortunately, the director’s biggest mistake was making the violent sociopaths herein the heroes in his tale. I’m not saying that bad guys cannot be considered heroes under the right circumstances; Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths was almost two hours of loveable crazies, and Richard Linklater’s Bernie made you root for a guilty murderer to get off scot free (and this was Jack Black, no less!). Bay’s problem is that this is a character-driven issue, and he’s just not a director who cares about his characters. You wing up hating just about everybody, whether they are the “heroes” or the “police” or anybody in between. Wahlberg and Mackie’s characters are so idiotic that you can’t help but shake your head at their incompetence and self-deception, not to mention their unlikely successes. Ed Harris’ private eye Ed Du Bois is dry and dull, and you’ll DEFINITELY hate Israeli actress Bar Paly as an immigrant exotic dancer cannot be understood half the time. You won’t even like Shalhoub as Kershaw, whom one character refers to as a “difficult victim”. The only person in this whole mess you’ll actually connect with is that of Paul Doyle (actually a composite of several real-life people), and that’s equal parts due to Johnson’s excellent performance and being an excellently-written role. You actually feel for Doyle, a recovering drug addict with a religious streak, who ends up joining the group and committing vile acts not through bad urges, but through desperation and a severe lack of options.

One of the few comedic successes

But the entire movie cannot be rested entirely on Johnson’s (and sparingly Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson’s) back, and it isn’t long until you’re clamoring for something – ANYTHING – to relieve the monotony. Bay’s strengths – explosions and pretty image – are thankfully intact, although limited in appearance. The director does a good job of capturing both the shiny and dingy sides of Miami, from the squeaky-clean tourist areas and luxury homes to the run-down neighborhoods and seedy warehouse districts. Of course, he became familiar with these areas from his work on Bad Boys and its sequel, and while things have probably changed in the time since, he still manages to use the area to the greatest cinematic effect. While many who praise Bay argue that it is his action sequences that set him apart, it’s not – his command of all things visual is his true strength, even if it’s not quite enough to make up for his other failings.

Money is not usually this bright.

One other nice aspect of Pain & Gain is how it – like many Bay productions – doesn’t take itself all that seriously. Though it amusingly purports to tell a true story (fact-checkers ought to have a field day with the script), Bay and company make full use of the nuttiness that occurred at the time, and the results are almost too crazy to be believed. And the insane part is that the scenes that you might consider too out there to possibly be real, the ones that make you laugh out loud due to their ridiculousness… ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Ironically, it’s the more normal parts of the story that were altered in order to make the characters more sympathetic. But while Bay perhaps failed in his final execution, one has to respect the wink and nod of being reminded during a particularly gruesome and comedic moment that, yes, “This is still based on a true story.”

You're not a real Miami resident without a racing dog.

But make no mistake; despite its occasional bits of amusement and a genuinely strong performance from Johnson, Bay’s return to more human fare is a painful exercise in just how much he has become reliant on giant robots to be successful. Pain & Gain is a mediocre, amateurish and thoroughly unnecessary attempt at forced relevance, both for the filmmakers and the subjects of their labors. Yes, it’s still better than many of the brain-dead macho violent movies released in 2013, but that line is more of a limbo bar than a high jump. Bay generally wants his movies to be awesome, but this one definitely doesn’t make it. Bay is not a character-driven director, and that’s simply the kind of filmmaker this title needed if it was going to be close to sufficiently entertaining.

Please Don't Stop the Music

How many times in the past year have we been subjected to attempts to recapture the magic that was Bridesmaids? The fem-semble take of a Judd Apatow production was not just a great film, but also an extremely popular one, grossing (and that is the right word) $288 million and earning itself a ton of Oscar buzz in the process. Since then, we've seen some decent stories that have tried to match that movie's blend of feminine camaraderie and raunchy humor, but neither Bachelorette nor Friends with Kids had much mainstream appeal, and Bridesmaids now threatens to be an exception of fem-first comedies rather than a rule.

On the surface, it doesn't appear that Pitch Perfect would be the type of movie to talk about as a spiritual successor to last summer's blockbuster, considering how much their promotional material is a blatant copy. But I think this one has the chance to surprise you. For example, preconceived notions of the film's goody-two-shoes nature last about five minutes, after which you will see exactly how I drew this comparison. Pitch Perfect takes a seemingly innocent topic - the rise of a capella (non-instrumental vocal music) as competition and community in college - and absolutely goes crazy with it, resulting in a movie you likely will never see coming.

Surrounded by women is not a bad way to go through college.

Socially-withdrawn Beca (Anna Kendrick) doesn't want to go to college. The aspiring music producer and talented sound mixer knows exactly what she wants to do with her life: move to Los Angeles and begin paying her dues as a producer. Her father insists she get a college education however, and gets her admitted to the school at which he teaches, hoping that she will find something in her peers that inspires her. Beca at first rejects the idea that campus life holds anything of value for her, as boys and classes have nowhere near the draw for her that music does. Things change when she is heard singing and begged to join a capella group "The Bellas", who are desperate to win the regional championships after an embarrassing end to the previous season. Beca's contemporary beats and the traditional style of senior member Aubrey (Anna Camp) fail to mesh, and the other young ladies chafe under Aubrey's strict leadership, but the Bellas still manage to put together a competitive group that is on the road to reach the finals. But will the tension break the group - and everyone's musical aspirations - before the final curtain is drawn?

Oh, no it's Mormons... look the other way, look the other way...

I don' t know about you, but my experience with a capella growing up was restricted to PBS's Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, whose theme song was performed by quartet Rockapella and for the longest time was my only connection to the music style. What Pitch Perfect re-introduced to me was not just a capella itself, but how good an ELITE team could be in performance. And this movie does well by it's soundtrack, from the all-vocal rendition of Universal Pictures' opening credits to wonderful performances of classic tunes to excellent mash-ups including one of Bruno Mars' 'Just the Way You Are' and Nelly's 'Just a Dream'. These represent some of the best the film has to offer, as the emotional and professionally-done performances draw you in and force you to discover the glee (no pun intended) you get from watching.

As if with a name like 'Treblemakers' they could be any less than rivals.

I remember being told that in order to make it as an actor, you have to be a lot more than just an actor. Often the best actors have a multitude of secondary talents, whether they be singing, dancing or juggling. Often these talents can lend themselves to aspects of their performances, and multifaceted performers can simply do more. For instance, I never knew that Anna Kendrick was the third-youngest Tony award nominee at age 12 for her work in Broadway musical High Society. The Up in the Air and 50/50 actress was already among the best up-and-coming performers of the past few years, and her multi-tiered role here is a a strangely perfect compliment to her career so far. But beyond Kendrick is a surprisingly deep pool of talent. Promotions may have focused almost exclusively on "Fat Amy", played by Bridesmaids' Rebel Wilson, and the Australian actress certainly does her part in sowing chaos as the brutally honest, free-thinking international vocalist. But while Wilson is perfect, the film's heart is not unjustly heaped on her shoulders. There is also Brittany Snow as Chloe, the Bellas' other senior member who tries to mitigate Aubrey's iron fist. Skylar Astin, Alexis Knapp, Ben Platt, musician Ester Dean and Hana Mae Lee provide tons of entertainment, with Lee perhaps the sleeper of the bunch. Adam DeVine provides an effective - albeit unnecessary - face to the Bellas' problems as a rival group leader. And duo John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks (who was also a co-producer) provide hilarious commentary during the competition scenes; Higgins is a hilariously misogynistic Regis Philbin while Banks is... well... Kathy Lee. In a comedic sense, it works perfectly; both are immensely well-used, but thankfully don't play any larger a role in the film than they need to.

The biggest thing to come out of Twilight?

Great music, good acting, great heart... it might seem like a cliche, but Pitch Perfect actually does turn out to be the feel-good film of the year. It's not without minor glitches; rookie director Jason Moore and screenwriter Kay Cannon try a little too hard to work the words "pitch" and "a capella" into jokes and puns that are far less entertaining than the bulk of the film's humor. Still, Moore's amateur style actually works better for this type of film than a more polished effort, and makes Pitch Perfect feel scrappy and earnest. Cannon also shows some potential, and might inspire me to start watching her TV series New Girl as a result. If you even remotely like musicals, college comedies, and a humor range that spans the gap between gross-out and brilliant, then this is most definitely your jam. If you're even remotely on the fence, do yourself a favor and give this one a try. I promise it won't be quite what you expect.