Mark Kermode reviews Pain & Gain

anyway praise be there's a Michael Bay movie around and we knew this was going to be an interesting one your face already depicts many varieties of thumb I mean I need to you know I need to be honest from the outset when it was announced that Michael Bay was doing pain and gain and I found a boat because people said oh you know Michael Bay's making kind of art house movie it's like a low-budget movie and it's different to sort of stuff you've done before and i nobody believes this but it's genuinely from a film critics point of view more interesting if something happens that you don't expect if a filmmaker that you don't like makes a film that you do like it's cut you know you want people to break the mold it does become quite boring having sort of pet peeves and people just think that I dislike Michael Bay in general and it is true that I have disliked Michael Bay's films in you know general in general you know for quite some time now but I did and you can believe this or not I did go into painting game wanting it to be something different wanting it to be you know like it cast a new light on Michael Bay I wanted it to be the thing that made me go oh you know what Wow Michael Bay is actually completely different to the way I imagined him in fact and quite the opposite happened what it did was it cemented him so solidly my view of the utter horror of his filmmaking that I I'm kind of cross with how much it make makes me sound like a stock record so pain and game basically is it says at the beginning based on a true story and at certain points in the drama actually stops and says this is still true and what on a caption yes a caption actually says this is still true yeah really okay so the story is that these kind of steroid headed bodybuilders there's Mark Wahlberg in the rocker thank you other stars from it so I'm just saying thank you because I've made no sense having brought a coffee and I couldn't you know nods would have been fine okay I'm sorry I'll not go thank you thank you decide that what they should do is kidnap a rich client and extort all his money and his possessions which apparently they do and then the plan goes awfully wrong because they're bundling steroid headed idiots but at some point in the drama I'm leading up to a clip because there's a couple of clips really were unusable this is pretty much the only clip we can play this is after they have achieved a certain degree of success and this is Mark Wahlberg with some kids it's not a great clip but it's really pretty much the only thing we could play here we go tell your mom the hell you doing on the ground it's supposed to hurt that pains it's gonna save your life just cells remember word hurts and that's where they get strong it's called pain and game rest you're gonna man up you better cause right now your sister saw you give me a hand get up what are you looking at you little chubby broad don't eyeball me boy I see your mother driving up and down Street looking at me happy it's definitely about a weekend I think the reason that they gave us that clip is because it has pain and gain in it you know and that which is the moment which certain you know film watching societies would applaud and leave here's the problem I think that Michael Bay thinks that what this is is a satire on bodybuilding mentality it begins with Mark Wahlberg singing I believe in fitness and there's an awful lot of stuff you know like the American Dream and the air I believe in the American dream I believe in you know self-determination and I believe in all there's a lot of that going on which implies that Michael Bay has a satirical intent the problem is Michael Bay has absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever I mean completely none it is possible to make a dark comedy about a sort of real life you know tragic horrible case you look for example at something like Bernie recently which was very very interesting Richard Linklater's very fine filmmaker and Jack Black giving his best performance as a guy who committed this murder this very grisly murder but who the town around him actually thought he was really sweet and nice because he was a mortician who they all liked and it's a very interesting it's like it's not a wonderful life that's what Richard Linklater did with us and Richard Linklater an intelligent person Michael Bay on the other hand I think not only is not intelligent but has such a pornographic sensibility that it is impossible for him to make anything that has the wit in sight distance or detachment to do anything that would justify taking this story the most obvious comparison for me is you remember when Paul Verhoeven made showgirls and Paul Verhoeven said well the thing is that as far as I'm concerned showgirls is a depiction of chauvinism and sexism and you know the the vileness of that of a sex industry but it's it's a comment upon it i'm satirically undermining it and yet even pull the joven himself again an intelligent man admitted that the film had failed as far as the audience was concerned he knew what he set out to do but it didn't do it there is a difference between comically deconstructing something and just standing around laughing at roadkill and the point at which I finally lost patience with pain and gain was the moment in which there was a there was an upskirt shot of a large dead woman with huge implants being comically dismembered by one of the character and I thought this is the moment at which you have you crossed the Rubicon you've trodden over that you are so far beyond being able to turn this into anything other and I started thinking all those words like this is vile this is grotesque this is ugly this is horrible no in a good way not in a not in that you know all isn't life full of seething strangers but in ER you have put your head down the toilet of life and have absolutely no sense that that's we're doing the the visual sensibility of it is grotesquely inappropriate there are people who apparently you know tangentially connected to the real case who are grossly offended by the movie I would said anybody with a beating heart and soul ought to be grossly offended by the movie it is a movie which in which Michael Bay makes his little art house movie to show us his soul and we look into his soul and we find ourselves looking into a void like abyss of blackness the depth and enormity of which it is impossible to comprehend verna Hertzog could look at pain and gain I think he'd actually be scared he's not frightened of it I mean it was horrible but it was horrible in horrible in the way that showgirls only glimpsed the horror after the film I was walking down the road with Christopher Tookie and Chris and I over the years have had sort of many huge disagreements not other critic he is and we had a famous falling-out and years and years ago when he he really objected morally to to crash the David Cronenberg film which i think is near-perfect and as we walk into the road I said you know it's funny there was a moment watching painting gained in which I actually started to think this must be what Chris took he felt like watching crash just thinking this is just so wrong on every possible level it is a horrible film it is a film with the blackest heart but not kamek black heart just a black gaping void like hole of a heart it is a film which is every bit as pumped up and steroidal as the appalling characters that it is attempting to portray it is a film so steeped in grotesque misogyny that it has no idea that it's even dealing in those areas the one redeeming feature is that unlike the Transformers movie it is not a movie for kids but I would go further and say it is not a movie for adults indeed it is not a movie for sentient breathing living beings it isn't it is what's that line in the Monty Python think about this is not a wine for drinking it is a wine for lying down and avoiding and in the case of pain and gain this is a movie for walking away from very slow very quietly just respectfully turn your back on it walk away you know what Michael go back to making Transformers movies they were you know head-banging ly terrible but I don't think I have been as depressed as I was coming out of pain and gain I thought I really felt again I remember having a conversation with Todd Haynes once he said that there was a critic who said that after they saw his first movie poison they felt that they needed to bath in Clorox I know what that felt like I sat there watching pain and gained thinking this is like swimming in a sewer and not in a good way

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 366,026

Keywords: Pain & Gain (Film), Mark Kermode (TV Personality), Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Michael Bay, Tony Shaloub, Ed Harris, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Kermode and Mayo, Film Review, Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio, Mark Kermode, Simon Mayo

Id: GcHvRhq36hw

Length: 7min 54sec (474 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 30 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/OuiNon]

I could be wrong, but I think he didn't like it.

[u/deepbrown]

How does one swim in a sewer 'in a good way?'

[u/NoTimeForFools]

I thought The Rock was hilarious in this movie.

[u/fingerguns]

ITT: Pain and Gain apologists.

[u/theGarbs]

Kermode is an absolute legend. His 'review' of Sex and the City 2 is my favourite

[u/xXShatter_ForceXx]

He got kinda snippy when he said thanks for the coffee. "Just nod will do." "Sorry I'll nod next time."

[u/deepobedience]

How many people really want to see it now?

[u/[deleted]]

I've yet to to see Pain and Gain, but did anyone else feel the way he described after watching Spring Breakers?

[u/AllyCatDee]

I was watching pan and gain and kept saying "ugh, i hate michael bay!" over and over til i fell asleep 30 mins in....