Pain And Gain(2013) Film Review

Rated R For Bloody Violence, Crude And Sexual Content, Nudity, Language Throughout And Drug Use.

2hrs 10min/130min.

159 uses of the F-word.

In 1995, Daniel Lugo, Adrian Doorbal and Jorge Delgado banded together to become The Sun Gym Gang. Daniel was a body builder who felt that he should have a wealthier life because he's so fit. One day Marc Schiller, who was a rich family man, walked into the Sun Gym and was introduced to Daniel. Daniel, together with his friends Adrian and Jorge, they kidnapped Schiller and extorted him for everything he had. Schiller enlisted the help of Private Detective Ed Du Bois II who, at first believed the story to be outlandish but eventually caught on that it was real and promised to catch the guys behind this.

Since The Sun Gym Gang thought that their first job went so well they would do it again. They decided to go after phone sex line operator Frank Griga and his girlfriend. However, the plan goes awry when Adrian purposefully kills Griga and his girlfriend. To cover up the murders, they bought power tools and decided to dismember the bodies and but them in barrels to dump into the lake. The bodies were found and the gang was sentenced. Lugo and Doorbal recievied death sentences and Delgado recivied 15 years but only served 7. Lugo and Doorbal are sitting on Death Row and Delgado is currently free.


Now you might be asking yourself, "Did he just spoil the film?" The answer is both yes and no. Yes meaning I did just spoil it and no meaning that the film is based on true events and in all honesty, it's history so you should know what happens. This story of The Sun Gym gang fascinates me everytime I see it. 3 body builders doing time for extortion, kidnapping, torture and murder. Now obviously they do take Hollywood liberties in the film. The actuall story is Much more brutal and grisly. This story is horrifying and disturbing to me and it should be to you. Now, on to the movie.

Daniel Lugo(Mark Whalberg) is a troubled man who takes over the Sun Gym and triples it's member ship within 6 weeks. Over that time he meets a man name Victor Kershaw(Tony Shaloub), a rich tycoon who wants to get buff. Daniel wants to have a rich lifestyle like Kershaw and finds that the only way to do that is an extortion scheme. Lugo, along with his buddies Adrien Doorbal(Anthony Mackie) and Paul Doyle(Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) kidnap Kershaw and take him to a warehouse. There, they proceed to torture him until he signs away almost everything he owns over to them. This plan works but Lugo fears that Kershaw will tell the cops of what happened. Lugo then plans to have Kershaw consume a ton of alcohol and drive his car into a pole. He survives this and the gang then sets the car on fire. They ignite the car and it explodes. Oddly Kershaw survives this and being run over twice by and SUV.

Kershaw enlists the help of Private detective Ed Du Bois II(Ed Harris) to take down the Sun Gym Gang. Meanwhile the gang wants to do another job and decide to extort Frank Griga and his girlfriend. Griga is a rih phone sex operator and they have mmetin almost immediatly. However, the meeting goes sour quickly when Griga and Lugo get in a heated argument. Then, in the scuffle, Griga is accidentally murdered by Lugo when a weight set impales him. In order to clean up the mess, the gang dismembers the bodies, and grills the dismembered hands of the couple to erase fingerprints. They then put the bodies in barrels and are eventually caught shortly after. The rest, as they say, is history.


The first thing to discuss is the casting. Mark Whalberg Fits the role of Daniel Lugo, a man who wanted the rich lifestyle and would go to any lengths to get it. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is perfect as Paul Doyle(name changed from Jorge Delgado), a man who didn't really want to go through a whole extortion scheme but wanted a ton of money. Anthony Mackie breathes the role of Adrien Doorbal who in real life was a sadistic sociopath who went too far for money.

Now the biggest problem that people have with the movie is that this reallife story, is turned into a dark comedy. People say that you shouldn;t sympathize with these charcters. Personally, I don't care. If the comedy works, it works and here, I thik it does work. This movie is here to give you a true story and entertain you. Now be warned, this film gets incredibly intense in the last 45 minutes, so be cautioned. I think that this is the best film of the year so far. Will it win any awards, No, but to me, it gets Best film of the year so far from me.