Film Review: 'Pain and Gain' Delivers Better Bay Madness

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 28 April 2013 23:30

Written by Matt Oakes

"Pain and Gain"
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Ken Jeong, Rebel Wilson and Bar Paly
Action/Comedy/Crime
130 Mins
R

 Pain and Gain is a preposterous true story that follows the real life exploits of a group of men who kidnapped a prickly, but rich, playboy, tortured him, and then forced him to sign over all of his valuables effectively making them rich. The narrative at the heart of it is too out-of-control to not be seductive but director Michael Bay lets down this inherently strong story with some elementary filmmaking missteps.

The ragtag crew at the center of this real story is led by Danny Lugo, a meathead with delusions of grandeur who is played perfectly by an aloof yet manipulative Mark Wahlberg. This is a man whose muscles outweigh his brain ten-to-one, who possesses a ridiculous entitlement complex and sees the American Dream as something indebted to him rather than something to strive for.

Lugo cons fellow gym-rats Paul Doyle and Adrian Doorbal into kidnapping some rich guy that no one will ever miss (due to his unpleasant demeanor) and extorting him for all he's worth. The craziest part of this true story is that they actually got away with it. However, when you give a mouse a cookie, he's gonna want a glass of milk and their taste of success in the criminal racket doesn't cut it for too long.

Looking at the film from an actor's perspective, the thing is a big hit. These characters at times seem downright evil and yet there is no judging from the actors. They play their characters with tactful understanding and a lack of discrimination. Honestly, I think that this is the first time that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson actually made a thespian contribution to a film rather than relying on yet another tough guy persona and boundless muscles to portray some semblance of character. If anything, Johnson is our moral compass - a deeply skewed moral compass yes, but certainly the most ethical of this depraved trio. It's great to see Johnson come out of his shell and embrace a more complex character than we're used to seeing and his bouncing back and forth between cocaine-addled-vice and Jesus-inspired-virtue easily makes him the film's most interesting character.

Aside from the pleasantly surprising acting, there are far too many noticeable no-no's from the book of directing 101 that really seemed to cash in on the "pain" portion of the title. Sure, Michael Bay has never misrepresented himself as an aspiring auteur or award seeker but what he does champion himself as is a maestro of entertainment. He's contend making sugary flicks with robots pounding on each other and for the most part, his films are entertaining. However, when his directorial choices stand as a barrier to entertainment, he needs to step back and reconsider what exactly he's trying to prove.

First off: cut back on the voice-overs. It's one thing to introduce the protagonist by allowing the audience to listen in on their thoughts but when you're using it for nearly every character, not only as a method of introduction but for every major moment of revelation, you know that you need to go back to the cutting room. Voice over is seen as a storytelling crutch for a reason. Instead of earning the audience's understanding, it is forced upon them.

I understand that Bay wants to cut to the essence of who these people are but to rely solely on VO for exposition shows a major lack of talent in the scripting department. The adage "show, don't tell" would apply nicely here. Bay truly was sitting on a gold mine of a true story with Pain and Gain which is probably why it's so interesting and yet it's impossible to ignore that it could have easily been told in a better way sans all the flashy freeze frames and gratuitous use of inner monologue.

Missteps aside, it is clear that Bay tries to transcend the big action spectacle films that make up his resume and fashion a satirical story about greed and a skewed perspective of the American Dream. He keeps all his iconic Bay hallmarks and lets them loose here. The boobs are bigger, the muscles larger but here the violence has consequences, producing more of a feeling of unease than smarmy shoot-em-up bliss. While it seemed like Bay aimed for satirical black comedy, the knowledge that this is a true story makes the whole affair much more disturbing and ultimately limits the laughs.

Of the dubious trio in the the film, their hubris is matched only by their stupidity. Dare I say the same of Michael Bay? These men have been distorted and tainted by a desire for unattainable opulence and an imaginary sense of entitlement that seems to come just from being American. Is this Bay pointing the finger at wealth and celebrity in America or am I just reaching for straws to make this more than what it is?

Even though Pain and Gain is maybe Bay's most mature film to date and he legitimately tries to dissect an nearly incomprehensible ethos,  his own over-embellishing and tacky directorial choices diverts attention from the actual story that is already so rife with drama. Instead of just letting it play out, Bay condescends to the audience with all his unneeded cues, acting like we're the ones who can't keep up with the story when it's actually him who is letting it escape his grasp. Fortunately, the story is strong enough and the acting powerful enough to overlook most of its structural problems and make this a rather entertaining bit of cinema reality.

Film Review: "Oblivion" is Mind Over Splatter

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 20 April 2013 09:29

Written by Matt Oakes

"Oblivion"
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Starring Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Sci-Fi/Action/Mystery
126 Mins
PG-13

For a seemingly effects-driven spectacle, Oblivion is a quiet and patient film that's more drawn to mind games than an all-out brawl. If you're expecting a guns-blazing, us-vs-them actioner, save yourself the ticket price and skip out on this one. However, if you're willing to engage in a beautifully realized, if somewhat retreat, cerebral sci-fi flick, be sure to catch it while it's still in theaters.

Tom Cruise plays Jack, a drone technician living and working on the now-abandoned Earth. Pixar fans will no doubt find comparisons with Andrew Stanton’s character, Wall-E as he’s tasked with the challenge of cleaning up the smoldering ashes of our ruined planet, after a cloaked alien race destroyed the moon and invaded.  Like Wall-E, Jack even discovers a rare plant but instead of putting it in a shoe, he plops it in a tin can and presents it to fellow Earthling and girlfriend-thing Victoria (Andrea Riseborough).

As Jack's tenure as a technician runs to a close, he gets closer to moving to Titan -Saturn's largest moon, where all his fellow humans have already relocated to. Ever the curious one, Jack discovers a crash-landing which holds a time-frozen Julia (Olga Kurylenko) who opens up a world of secrets into his memory-wiped past.

Knocking on Cruise has become something of a pastime for America but I stand behind him as a man with massive talent. Not only does he do all of his own stunts (even the ones which would likely kill him) but he always brings his A-game. Sure, his action star roles often resemble each other but he offers enough variation while still preserving his distinct persona and has created a formula that really works. His role here just goes to prove why Cruise is such a household name. Sure, this is totally within his comfort zone but the man knows exactly what to do in a movie like this and hits all the notes perfectly. Without a weathered star like Cruise to dominate the vast majority of the screen time, it might not have been as captivating minute-to-minute and certainly wouldn't have the same pull with mainstream audiences.

Outside of Cruise, most of the other performances are acceptable but hardly noteworthy. Both Kurylenko and Riseborough play apt female supporting bits but neither seem to have had quite  enough pulp in their character to squeeze a satisfying juice from. Morgan Freeman is definitely being overplayed on the marketing side of the equation as he probably only has about five to ten minutes of screen time. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones (Jaime Lannister) pop up as Freeman's partner in the film although his role was equally small. This is Cruise's ballgame and there is no denying that he alone shoulders the bulk of the film - hardly a shocker with a leading man like him.

Where Oblivion did surprise me was in its unhurried pacing. The set pieces and action scenes actually service the narrative rather than the other way around. Instead of charging ahead, full on, towards the steady throb of endless action sequences, the film takes its careful time to develop the world and its two (and then three) inhabitants. Without the tired scramble from one shoot-out to the next - something that has come to define the blockbuster sci-fi genre of late - Oblivion works as a slowly unwrapped question mark leading down an increasingly heady rabbit-hole.

Lucky for us, that rabbit-hole is laid out amongst some truly stunning and yet adequately restrained visual effects that really make this post-apocalyptic world pop. Less-is-more seems to have been adopted by the effects team as they offer a view of a world disappearing into itself rather than imploding in your face. Much like the powerful image of the Statue of Liberty's arm rising from the sand that truncates the original Planet of the Apes, Oblivion relies on the power of suggestion and visual simplicity to create its landscape of desolation and the accompanying melancholic tone.

Having transitioned from Tron: Legacy to Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski has made great leaps as both a storyteller and filmmaker - genuinely appearing to have learned from his previous missteps. The visual wizardry that made Tron: Legacy watchable is still as potent if not more so here but Kosinski accomplishes so much more without everything else being so loud and ultimately shallow. Turning it down from eleven makes the ordeal not only more bearable, it makes it more inviting to those willing to invest themselves. Again, for those of you wanting things to pop out in your face and the knowledge that you'll only have to wait mere minutes for the next big shootout...this is not the film for you.

With so much technical mastery at his disposal, Kosinski earns points by not overextending and brazenly grabbing for the "oohs" and "ahhs." I'd take this simplified spectacle over cluttered CGI blowouts any day. It is in this simplification that you realize that the scope of a sci-fi film can still be epic without all the flashy glitz trying to distract us from its lack of backbone. By being a student of restraint, Kosinski has made a much grander film than his previous one and one that doesn't have to compete with itself for your attention.

Oblivion has the DNA of The Matrix, Alien, Wall-E, Terminator and especially Duncan Jones' Moon and while it's hard to ignore the influence that those films had on Oblivion, Kosinski could have taken his cues from worse places. The cautionary tales of nuclear war and fear of advancing technology have become staples to the sci-fi diet so much of the film feels like familiar territory. This does not mean that it's not worth our attention though. With more mature direction from Kosinski, a skilled star in Cruise, beautiful effects work, and a bold, if retread, narrative, Oblivion is exactly the type of heady popcorn flick the sci-fi genre needs.

Film Review: Under the Spell of Boyle's "Trance"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 13 April 2013 18:52

Written by Matt Oakes

"Trance"
Directed by Danny Boyle
Starring James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson, Danny Sapani and Tuppence Middleton
Crime/Drama/Thriller
101 Mins
R

Any time a Danny Boyle film is in the works, I can’t help but get my hopes up. The man who’s brought such great films as Trainspotting, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire has truly earned the title of auteur chameleon as he drifts in and out of genres with faultless ease. With Trance, all the earmarks of a Boyle film are here- uncomfortably close digital shots, a rich, vibrant color palette, a pulsing sense of place and life, reversals of character, etc.- but this time he’s playing with the notion of the power of suggestion. As Trance leaves little hints along the way, the twists and turns are admirable and calculated and there’s enough intrigue in the journey to set any accusations of bollocks by the wayside.

The film begins with a sly little musical ditty as Simon (James McAvoy) breaks the third wall and tells us the ins-and-outs of the fine art auctioneering business. After a century of robberies and hold-ups, the auctioneering society has developed a systematic method to safeguard their highly prized paintings. However precious these costly paintings may be, no art is worth a human life. At least this is the case for the snobbish art auctioneers society. We shortly find out, criminals think different on the subject.

Whenever these attempted robberies take place, Simon is tasked with nabbing the painting and hustling them to a slide-away-safe. This time though, he’s cut a deal with French mafioso-type Franck (Vincent Cassel) to steal Francisco Goya’s “Witches in Air”, worth a whooping 27 million British pounds. When things go awry, Simon suffers a blow to the head and forgets where he’s stashed the high-priced painting. Franck and Simon seek the help of Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), a hypnotherapist, with hopes of cracking through Simon’s amnesia and discovering the lost canvas.

What plays out is a cat-and-mouse game of beating the psyche but as bits of Simon’s mind become unlocked the dynamics between these characters begin to shift and unfold a much deeper plot. There’s a bit of Inception taking place here as the troop attempts to crack into Simon’s mind to excavate his lost memories but instead of big set pieces, Trance relies on crafty camera work and subverted expectations to keep our attention and earn our anticipation. Every shot seems framed by another frame, a reflection of a reflection- a thinly veiled metaphor for the character and yet another example of some damn fine camera work by Boyle regular, Anthony Dod Mantle.

While there is nothing Oscar worthy in the performances, all of the players do a great job at fleshing out their characters and giving them the back-story needed to make the plot twists flourish. James McAvoy’s (X-Men: First Class) Simon is a bit of an enigma and as Boyle peels down the onion of his character, we see the crafty construction that he truly is. As always, McAvoy offers a tight little performance with an edgy air and scatterbrained coolness. At this point, he’s nailed down the apprehensive, panicky protagonist that dances with the darkness and he’s right on cue here again.

Vincent Cassel (Black Swan) lets the charisma flow and in the process transforms from a one-dimensional character into a more intriguing antihero. Suave to a fault, he channels the same seductive sporting that characterized Thomas from Black Swan. But as his secrecy melts away under the spell of Dawson’s Elizabeth, we see the man beneath the title and he’s more interesting than your cookie-cutter gangster.

Playing the fulcrum between her two leading men, Rosario Dawson (Sin City) plays Elizabeth in a similarly cryptic manner. While her decisions at first seem to be motivated by sympathy and greed, there is a primal aura of self-preservation to Elizabeth that grows throughout. I admire the fact that instead of using Elizabeth as a typical female playing third-fiddle, she is at the center of the action- she is the Queen in this game of chess and without her everything is lost. Instead of a throwaway role, Dawson plays up this character’s complexity and dumps all over the boring love triangle formula that dominate similar films.

There’s a good measure of sex and gore with some hairy carnage - one half-headed scene in particular reminded me of a Cronenberg film - and even some hairless vajayjay. Boyle knows where to beef up the scenes with a helping of these guilty pleasures and adds them in gleefully. This is hard-boiled pulp made for adults seeking an intelligent film that doesn't pretend it's anything more than it is. This isn’t some grand deconstruction of eternal themes, it’s an ample little thriller that keeps you guessing until the end and flips our expectations at every turn.

It takes a tested hand like Boyle’s to turn this relatively minor film into a genre flick buzzing along with tactful cinema purity and a life all of its own. The sly little reveals peppered throughout the film keep it light and exciting, allowing it to zip along to a satisfying conclusion. Although some of the character beats seem hurried at times, once Trance plays its final hand, you’re sure to be left satisfied and not feeling conned out of your time and money.