By - SUZETTE LABOY
Category - Balboa Park San Diego
Posted By - San Diego Hampton Inn
 |
| Balboa Park San Diego |
MIAMI (AP) — The
real-life murder, torture and kidnapping case from South Florida that's
behind the coming movie "Pain & Gain" indeed reads like a script —
just not a funny one.
The fact that the film, starring
Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, is an action-comedy has
angered survivors of the Sun Gym gang's crimes and those who
investigated them nearly two decades ago.
"You are talking about real
people. And in this particular case, especially when you're talking
about the murder victims, these were innocent victims," said retired
Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Felix Jimenez.
Zsuzsanna Griga told The Miami
Herald that the movie's depiction of the gang as sympathetic bumblers
just trying to get ahead is "ridiculous." Gang members murdered and
dismembered her brother and his girlfriend.
"It's horrible what happened to
them," said Griga, who lives in Hungary. She could not be reached by The
Associated Press. "I don't want the American public to be sympathetic
to the killers," she said.
The Paramount film, which opens
April 26 and is directed by Michael Bay of "Transformers" and
"Armageddon" fame, is adapted from a series of Miami New Times articles
about a group of 1990s bodybuilders who hatched a brutal get-rich-quick
kidnapping scheme that eventually escalated to murder. Paramount
declined comment.
The New Times series told of
mastermind Daniel Lugo, played by Wahlberg, his sadistic muscleman Noel
Doorbal, played by Anthony Mackie, and Jorge Delgado, who is not
portrayed in the movie, who were denizens of the Sun Gym, which was
known for its hardcore bodybuilders. Johnson plays Paul Doyle, a
fictional member of the crew.
Lugo, a charming conman who had
served prison time for defrauding seniors, was the gym's manager. He
hired Doorbal, a gym rat and steroids abuser, as a part-time employee
and cut him in on a lucrative Medicare fraud scheme. Delgado, one of
Lugo's clients at the gym, had once worked for Marc Schiller, a wealthy
Miami businessman whom they targeted for kidnapping.
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