Pain & Gain

I've never been a fan of Michael Bay's movies, but I've never thought of him as a bad person.

Until now.

Pain and Gain is a bad movie made by a bad person who operates under the assumption that his audience is full of bad people who enjoy laughing at other bad people.

Pain and Gain is a bad movie because it's a thuddingly unfunny comedy. Not one funny thing happens during its entire run time, and I didn't so much as grin from the opening credits to the close. Pain and Gain was made by a bad person because only a bad person thinks that a true story of kidnapping, torture, and multiple murder can be played for laughs. This bad person assumes that his audience is full of bad people because it is, simply, wrong to laugh at stupid people for being stupid: they can't help it.

Here's the story: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie are stupid bodybuilders who, motivated by a stupid get-rich-quick schemer, go in on a stupid plan to kidnap and torture a rich guy until he gives them his money.

Yes, there's some commentary on materialism and confusion between wealth and happiness, but it's slight. Mostly, the film serves as an opportunity for its audience to spend ninety minutes feeling superior to a bunch of morons.

You know who finds that entertaining? Bad people. I regret reneging on my resolution never to see another Michael Bay movie. Bad decision.

Ted

Ted is a hilarious 10-minute sketch crammed into an excruciating 106-minute movie.

Here's the sketch: a lonely boy wishes that his teddy bear would come to life and be his best friend forever. The wish comes true and the boy and his bear grow into two lazy, irresponsible, couch-bound weed monkeys. The bear says and does lots of vulgar stuff, which is funny coming from a teddy bear. That's about it.

This makes for an amusing first act. Mark Wahlberg is game for just about anything as the grown-up slacker, and the animators who created the bear do phenomenal work. The joke wears thin by the second act, however. By the third, we're checking our watches and wondering if we have any socks that need folding.

What's bad about it? First, Wahlberg is horribly miscast as the aforementioned couch-bound weed monkey. While he's a fine actor who's willing to work for a laugh, the fact is that he looks like a bodybuilder. I submit that it's impossible to be both a lazy, irresponsible, couch-bound weed monkey and a bodybuilder. Bodybuilding requires dedication, discipline, and a work ethic. Every time the movie showed me Wahlberg's character sprawled out on the couch, with a beer to one hand and a bong to the other, all I could think was, “Shenanigans. This guy looks like he spends his time drinking protein shakes and doing hammer curls. I'm just not buying it.”

And the love interest? I felt actively sorry for Mila Kunis in this picture. Not only was she trying to play a character wholly in love with an unlovable man, she looked so thin that I wanted to shout, “Hey, Wahlberg, how about sharing one of your protein shakes with this poor woman? She looks like she's about to collapse!”

The score is boring. The cinematography is boring. The direction is lackluster. While watching this film, I felt that I was making a conscious choice to fritter away my precious time on this earth. Yes, I laughed during the first act, and I think Ted's premise would make for a terrific “Funny or Die” short. But as a feature film? Ted is worse than bad: it's boring. I feel cheap just for taking the time to write about it.

The Fighter

Recently, I looked through a buddy’s photos from Afghanistan.  Mark Wahlberg had come to his base to premiere The Fighter, and one of the photos showed the movie star carrying all his own gear out of the back of the C-130 on which he’d flown in.  Wahlberg, apparently, was a great guy: eating with the junior Marines, making time for a word and a photo with all who asked, and generally making his momma proud.

I’m sure Wahlberg went all the way to Afghanistan because it was the right thing to do.  It also worked as a promotional strategy, because I rented The Fighter the day I saw those photos.

It’s a hell of a good movie, but it’s hard to watch.  Wahlberg plays Mickey, a small time boxer in a family devoted to small time boxing.  His older brother Dicky (Christian Bale, phenomenal here) may have knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard once upon a time, but now he’s a pathetic crackhead.  His mother (Melissa Leo, unrecognizable after Frozen River) seems intent on managing him into oblivion.  The rest of the circus that comprises his family doesn’t seem much better.  Then Wahlberg meets Amy Adams (Enchanted, Charlie Wilson’s War), a local bartender and very tough broad who shows him another way.

I know what you’re thinking: “Why would I see this movie?  If I want to spend time with a dysfunctional family, I’ll go home for Christmas.”  See it for the performances.  See it for Mickey, a fighter who must learn to stop worrying about making everybody happy.  See it for Dickey, an ex-fighter who may never learn that it’s impossible to be a cool guy who also smokes a little crack on the side.  See it for their mother, who believes she’s the proud matriarch of a noble clan when, in fact, she’s a 70-year-long train wreck that’s about 2/3 of the way through.

The Fighter works, and it works because of these great performers.  Seeing this movie is like seeing a master class in the art of acting, and I enjoyed it for that alone.  All that, and Mark Wahlberg’s a good guy.  What more do you need?

Shooter

SHOOTER is your basic action/conspiracy thriller, starring Mark Wahlberg as the former superdupersoldier who can ... not ... be ... stopped.

Which is fine, and lots of stuff goes boom and all. But what makes this movie interesting are Danny Glover, Ned Beatty, and Elias Koteas as villains. These are not names I normally associate with villainy, and it's great fun to watch Glover do "efficiently amoral," Beatty do "self-interested evil," and Koteas do "batshit crazy." Further, the excellent Michael Peña (BABEL, CRASH, MILLION DOLLAR BABY) does fine work as the noble FBI agent, and I'm actually coming to like Kate Mara (pictured), whom I found grating in ZOOM.

But this movie is so pedestrian, so lacking in creativity or unique voice, that I can give it no more than the most lukewarm approval. If you like watching stuff blow up and you find SHOOTER on cable, you could do a lot worse. But don't go out of your way for it.

The Italian Job

Oh, how I love 2003's THE ITALIAN JOB.

This is a movie that looks great, that sounds great, that's packed with charismatic and interesting stars, and that is both complex enough to reward careful viewing and broad enough to play in the background at a get-together. It's not the greatest heist movie ever (That's RIFIFI. If you haven't seen it, your life has no meaning.), but it does everything it needs to do, and it does it with style.

THE ITALIAN JOB begins with a job in, well, Italy. Venice (top city on my 'to visit' list), to be precise, and the job is a clockwork masterpiece of timing, guts, and skill. From there, we're on to a world of doublecrosses, revenge, Charlize Theron looking impossibly beautiful, fun dialogue, neat car chases, exciting practical stunts, and did I mention Charlize Theron looking impossibly beautiful?

The last time I saw this movie, it played in the background during an impromptu get-together. It was easy to settle into during lulls in the conversation, and it had lots of pretty pictures to display when the talk picked back up again. What a fun movie.

Invincible

I challenge you to watch INVINCIBLE and not lace on your shoes to bag a few quick miles afterward.

OK, so I'm a sucker for inspirational sports films. I also happen to be a sucker for the Philadelphia Eagles, having made more on them than on Halliburton this year. INVINCIBLE hits all the marks of a good sports film and, with a helping of charisma from Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnnear, and the wonderful Elizabeth Banks.

Here's the story: it's Philadelphia, it's the mid-'70s, and times are hard. We know this because the part of the film that sets up the milieu is color-corrected with what looks like an annoying yellow gel. The Eagles, Philly's hometown NFL team, stinks, and new coach Kinnear hits on the idea of holding open tryouts, a first for an NFL team. Wahlberg, a down-on-his-luck bartender / substitute teacher tries out for the team, overcomes hardship, and inspires the city. It sounds cheesy, but it works and clips right along to a satisfying ending that feels like it comes far too soon. I'd grown to like Wahlberg's character, real-life player Vince Papale, and I wanted to see what happened next in his life.

I have some problems with the picture, mostly with choices that I think were made in post, but that's ok. If you like sports films, you can't go wrong with INVINCIBLE.

The Departed

When THE DEPARTED’s final credit rolled, I looked at my watch and thought, “Where did the time go?” Scorsese’s film, which clocked in at over two hours, raced by and I enjoyed every single minute. And yet, much as I liked it (and I really, really liked it), I think INFERNAL AFFAIRS is a better picture.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS, the Hong Kong Thriller remade in THE DEPARTED, stars Andy Lau and Tony Leung in the Damon and DiCaprio roles, respectively. The movies are nearly identical, with one major exception: moral ambiguity. In THE DEPARTED, Matt Damon’s character is a gangster in his heart. His decisions come from a position of self-interest and cold analysis of his situation. In INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Lau’s character began as a gangster, but he’s spent so much time on the right side of the law that he’s no longer playacting: he has conditioned himself to goodness and there’s a very real part of him that genuinely wants to become good. In THE DEPARTED, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is noble at heart. He’s so filled with horror at the demands of undercover work and sublimated fear of death that he turns to pills just to help him maintain his equilibrium. In INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Leung’s character kind of likes being a gangster: he’s grown used to it and, though he’d like to come in, we have a sense that he could continue to thrive in the underground world to which he’s become accustomed.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot to like about THE DEPARTED. It’s a Scorsese picture, so of course it looks and sounds great. The cast is phenomenal, the story brisk, and situations involving. It’s a four-star movie, no doubt about it. But I like a little more moral ambiguity in my movies. INFERNAL AFFAIRS wins by a nose.