Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Pain & Gain (B+)

Michael Bay's Pain & Gain is a dizzying, lunatic dissent into one of the most surreal and gleefully disturbing blue collar crimes to have ever been committed in the already morally desolate dystopia of 1990s-era Miami. The case involves a group of charismatic bodybuilders willing to break all taboos of American society to achieve their MTV warped perception of the American dream; aggressively abusing their pectoral wattage to torture an intensely unlikable Columbian entrepreneur into surrendering all assets and traces of former existence. It's depraved, violent, and relentlessly hyperactive popcorn entertainment drenched in sarcastic dark humor and lit by the inherently warm glow of the Florida sun. Bay has concocted a Molotov cocktail of dizzying sadism, and against all moral judgement, it's difficult not to get swept up in what is sincerely an absolute blast.