Yesterday I had the misfortune of wasting over 2 hours of my life that I can never get back watching this movie. I corrupted precious brain space, that would have been put to much better use memorizing license plates in traffic, than committing even 5 minutes of that footage to memory.
Pain & Gain stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub & Ed Harris...(not a bad cast for an action comedy). Mark plays a fitness buff turned personal trainer, who is unsatisfied with his mediocre life and decides to steal his 'American Dream', by kidnapping Tony, who plays a wealthy playboy with a bad attitude, and forces him to sign over his fortune and properties to him. knowing he can't pull it off by himself, he solicits the aid of Anthony, his long time friend and training partner with a steroid induced erectile disfunction, and Dwayne, an emotionally unstable x-con turned christian. The directors 'claim' this was based on a true story, but they had to remind us a few times throughout the film, as the series of events seemed more likely to come from a Three Stoogies screenplay than real life.
Apart from how ridiculously unbelievable the level of stupidity displayed in this movie was, the cinematography was horrible in several scenes. We even saw a few scenes where the audio from out of focus characters, was obviously out of sync with their lip movement and actions.
Mark Wahlberg has shown over the years that he can deliver diverse rolls well. From comedy to hard core action, he has built a name for himself as a versatile actor, so one wonders what kind of influence he must have been under when he signed on to do this movie....and when he sobered up and saw the first few scenes, did he contemplate suicide? The Rock has never been known for the best acting skills, and i have often thought him to be a single dimensional actor; but this film was a new low for him. Tony Shalhoub & Ed Harris played the two best rolls in this film, the victim and the retired investigator respectively.
I would give this movie a ONE & A HALF STARS, something you should only watch if you have no cable, TVJ is showing JN Vibe and someone lent you the DVD; but if you have watched this movie and you disagree with my opinions, or just have something else you would like to add, please feel free to share it with us.
With Just 2 days to go, and hearing of the box office success so far, I am counting down the hours to the release of Iron Man 3 here in Jamaica. Luckily we get it even before the U.S.
