But the guy's already got a new Transformers on the horizon, and a heavily butchered Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles too. And P&G isn't too different from the lot of them: the humor is childishly vulgar as always and Bay's camera literally never stops twirling around and cutting for the film's two hours. It's not that Bay's refined his talents, simply that he's found a story so absurd that Bay's way of doing things fits like a glove.
And you could see it then as a bit of a joke that the absurd story that P&G spins is a true story: Marky Mark Wahlberg plays Daniel Lugo, a fitness nut and small time personal trainer who's, as he puts it, "wearing sweat pants to work" and wants to make it in the big leagues. He recruits fellow down and outer Adrian (Anthony Mackie) and reformed god serving con Paul (Dwayne Johnson) for his plan to kidnap and hold ransom his greedy one percenter of a boss Tony Shalhoub. Things obviously go wrong and the screen explodes into a mesh of cocaine and dead bodies.
It has a lot in common with Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street, another true crime story from the 90s, and another story told in a hyperreal way: full of kinetic energy and both very self-conscious (a sign even appearing in one of P&G's more absurd moments to remind us "this is still a true story"). Most film fans wouldn't put Bay and Scorsese side by side but the comparison here is a good showcase of just how close well respected art and low brow art is: P&G is irreverent like hell - sure to turn many off - but if you buy into it it's a shot of pure fun straight to the mainline.
Wahlberg always gives off a very no-fuss quality; it's not an old fashioned movie star charm but the guy has a confidence that most of his contemporaries lack, used here with brilliant effect to play Lugo as someone who has bigger ambitions than he has restraint; while Johnson gives inarguably his best performance (I can't think of any performance of his coming close). Although it's screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely who deserve the most praise: this is the first Bay film about something. If you want it's just some violent pop corn fun, but there's a sense of tragedy to this story as well, of small timers wanting so bad to live out the American Dream they end up turning to crime because it's the only way they can make it.
The film isn't without problems: the quick cutting is here, sure to send any analytical film fan's heart plunging to the bottom of the ocean, although P&G reminded me more of a Michael Mann film than previous Bay stuff: each shot counts, has a real purpose in the scene than to just spice things up. The constant fast pace has its own problems though, like in an early scene in the gym in which Anthony Mackie speaks of his hopeless dreams - it feels like things should slow down and we should get a quick breather while this emotional moment happens, while instead the push onward continues. It's a reminder that it's the material that is such a good fit for Bay, not Bay adapting his style to the material. But it doesn't change the fact that P&G is some of the most fun I've had watching a movie in a while - an unashamedly crass jolt to the senses, and a work of film construction that deserves to be admired as much as any film from last year.
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