Why I love Dwayne Johnson’s per­for­mance in Pain & Gain

With the release of Bay­watch, Dwayne John­son ven­tures into raunchy com­e­dy mode, as the much beloved remem­bered TV show gets an affec­tion­ate piss-take update. Word of mouth on the reboot may be mixed, but that cer­tain­ly isn’t a reflec­tion of Johnson’s com­ic abil­i­ties. Cock­sure humour was a key com­po­nent of his wrestling per­sona, The Rock, while the star’s finest film per­for­mance to date came in one of the more grotesque (and inter­est­ing­ly so) stu­dio movies of recent times: Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain, in which he plays an amal­ga­ma­tion of three oth­er men involved in one of the strangest true crime sto­ries of the ​’90s.

Pain & Gain makes up one third of 2013’s unof­fi­cial ​‘Amer­i­can Dream, Y’all’ tril­o­gy, which also includes Har­mo­ny Korine’s Spring Break­ers and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring – each a high-stakes crime tale that takes a satir­i­cal stab at, among oth­er tar­gets, nar­cis­sism and com­mod­i­ty fetishism. All were divi­sive works upon release, but Pain & Gain is by far the most mis­un­der­stood, per­haps due to the dis­be­lief that direc­tor Bay could actu­al­ly pos­sess the self-aware­ness to skew­er the kind of half-wit­ted machis­mo that fea­tures in so many of his films.

Mark Wahlberg and Antho­ny Mack­ie are ter­rif­ic as the fel­low body­builders of the Sun Gym gang, who get caught up in an extor­tion ring – but it’s John­son who gives an MVP per­for­mance. His Paul Doyle is an ex-con­vict and ex-addict who saw the light in prison but is stuck for work on the out­side, now strug­gling between being a good Chris­t­ian and help­ing his new­found pals stage the kid­nap­ping and exac­tion of a sand­wich mogul (Tony Shal­houb) they view as unde­serv­ing of his wealth.

Paul’s par­tic­i­pa­tion is based on the promise of no vio­lence, but even before their first scheme (even­tu­al­ly) reaps reward, he’s begrudg­ing­ly par­tak­en in knock­ing their vic­tim out fol­low­ing an attempt­ed escape, and lat­er assists in the gang’s attempt­ed mur­der of Ker­shaw. Once the dim-wit­ted trio’s rolling in rich­es, Paul is soon enough back to his sub­stance-abus­ing habits, blow­ing his share on, well, blow, along­side expen­sive presents for strip­per girl­friend, Sori­na (Bar Paly), who believes he’s a CIA agent. In des­per­ate need of funds, he inspires the group’s sec­ond ill-fat­ed for­ay into crime, which aids the Mia­mi police in final­ly appre­hend­ing them.

Bay’s unsub­tle approach means that Paul’s strug­gles between his faith and a life of crime are most­ly played for broad laughs, but John­son brings unex­pect­ed nuance to the role. While Wahlberg spends much of the film on a con­sis­tent scream­ing reg­is­ter, John­son brings uproar­i­ous laughs through a dis­arm­ing­ly flu­id switch between exas­per­at­ed shout­ing and dead­panned con­fu­sion. One high­light sees a grand procla­ma­tion of fists sup­pos­ed­ly blessed by Jesus him­self imme­di­ate­ly pre­ced­ed by Paul strug­gling to com­pre­hend the arti­cles he’s read­ing to a blind­fold­ed, tied-up Vic­tor; John­son declares a Newsweek cov­er sto­ry on the Unabomber ​“scary” in the fash­ion of a hair­dress­er opin­ing on a customer’s small talk top­ic with­out hav­ing actu­al­ly processed the infor­ma­tion they’ve received.

Though able to step up and pro­vide some vital intim­i­da­tion where nec­es­sary, Paul spends much of the movie in a state of histri­on­ic unease. While the Fast & Furi­ous films have seen John­son thrive through blunt-force com­ic deliv­ery, in Pain & Gain his per­for­mance is almost like a weird riff on Bruce Ban­ner, if Ban­ner were just as ripped as his big green alter ego. Rather fit­ting­ly, Paul even ends up tear­ing through the streets of Mia­mi while slathered in green dye fol­low­ing a botched bank rob­bery in a scene which unfolds like some­thing out of Grand Theft Auto.

Like the Hulk, Paul’s vio­lent out­bursts often have an obvi­ous trig­ger, chief among his being any­thing ques­tion­ing the per­ceived right­eous­ness he still projects and clings on to despite his bla­tant inse­cu­ri­ties. Where John­son finds fur­ther humour, and some­thing verg­ing on pathos amid the barbed satire, is in pro­jec­tions of naivety, with Paul – a reluc­tant lon­er, based on hints of back sto­ry – repeat­ed­ly duped into col­lab­o­ra­tion by any­one who treats him with the vaguest amount of respect, sin­cere or oth­er­wise. This hulk is but a dumb pup­py: hope­less­ly devot­ed to any­one giv­ing it the slight­est bit of atten­tion or affec­tion, and prone to rub­bing its nose in some filthy shit.