An unapologetically bawdy blast of florid, drugged-out kidnapping, violence and steroid-addled dark comedy, the bizarre true crime tale Pain & Gain, Michael Bay‘s first non-Transformers flick since 2005, nudged out holdover Oblivion at the top of the weekend box office, pulling in just over $20 million. It’s part of the caffeinated wing of the “Idiots Behaving Criminally” subgenre, reminiscent in fits and starts of colorful movies like Savages, Domino, Wild Things, True Romance and Very Bad Things.
A somewhat smaller profile yet no less genuine antecedent highly worth checking out, however, is 1996’s Bottle Rocket, which not only served as the debut of director Wes Anderson, but also the first screen appearances of brothers Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson, the latter of whom penned the script along with Anderson. If male adolescence and indeed its extension into twentysomethinghood is a disorienting combination of bravado and insecurity, Bottle Rocket illustrates, in an amusingly idiosyncratic way, the deep feeling and fraternity attached to it all. I write more words about the similarities and differences between the films over at Yahoo Movies as part of a recurring new feature, so click here for the read.