People are no longer responsible for the madness of their mind

Michael Bay being tasteless was quite a choice for this unredeeming, ungraceful story that leaves you cold as ice.

There's an odd chemistry of elements in this film, under the ever flying direction of someone whose substance is style. Entering the movie frontdoor with a hero you'll supposedly root for, you soon get an invitation to a rotten dinner. Digesting the spoilt pieces of chicken as hard to masticate as the moral essence of this adventure, you wait for some other guests in this Cluedo. The victim is announced, he knocks the door, from the rainy riffs of his walkabouts. You should take his coat and serve him soup, but soon you realize he is paltsy and rattling, cause he's in fact a 'despicable victim'. No matter his lament you won't feel empathy.

For a story, it is quite a choice to uphold ethically; as if you would represent an holocaust survivor as a ranting old berk, and his counterpart SS in a golden library as a quatrocento expert. By accident, or by malice, everything is done for you to switch the pieces of good and evil, so you forget the fire you're holding in your hand. Which is the method of political ideology. Although, we are nowhere near political capharnaum.

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Ethics being such a drive for storytelling, during this film you always have one step on the gas pedal while the other one on brakes. Where the movie's successful is through its use of an American antic to it's utter foolishness. Rooting for the hero of this story would be the equivalent of praising fascism because it actually does something. And the complexity of judgment over Pain and Gain is that you almost feel that for Michael Bay, the hero's right all along, no matter how criminal he actually is. In fact, we are so far up the road of modernity, criminality has turned into nothing more than Three Stooges comedy. That's at first glance why Michael Bay was the best choice for this. He's so republican in his art only him could have magnified Wahlberg the antihero with such unapologetic grace. This is not political ideology, this is a mind seeing the world through such a window the drawings it make fascinate your normalcy. Michael Bay is a director whose all artistry is a celebration of Americanisms in a big bad way, almost a spoiled kid. The strength of arm of Pain and Gain comes to life when you're reminded that everything you're following like a drunk Coen screenplay is true (as proven during the credits). By that standard it is an object higher than a Coen film. Joel & Ethan probably intend comedy from an elaborate sense of taste. Michael Bay that's just how he digs it. It's more primal and wild, almost like an ad of his mind.

What are we presented with ? And what are we led to understand ? I would argue, and that's why I consider it a great film, that the movie was tolerating constantly the hero's journey (of being a do-er) because in that reality people are no longer responsible for the madness of their mind. There is no amalgam to make anymore, between deviance & punishment. In a Pain & Gain, Gta-like code of conduct, it's worst to be the victim of the world around you. This mixture makes for an unforgettable narrative experiment. Michael Bay is either one of the best director this year, or he just chose the most awkward screenplay he could put his hands on to create an unprecedented emulsion.

In fact the only movie Michael Bay should do today is GTA : the f* film.