Pain & Gain (2013) Miami-Dade ultimate guide – ALL locations

[Paul Veres]

I should have created this thread originally instead of bringing it up in Miami Miscellaneous where many locations were discussed in pages 66 and 67. Time to wrap this one up. This is not so much about the movie, which is a fun flick, as it is about discovering Miami through the location scouting.

You can find all the locations on this map.

The locations are numbered in the order they appear in the movie.

If you click on a marker, you will see the locale name (location’s role in the movie) and a brief description of the scene. Only the first use is mentioned. For example, we go back to Sun Gym numerous times, but since this map populating is automated through Excel, I didn’t manually add descriptions of all relevant scenes to the same marker, it just pulls the very first one as encountered in the movie.

While they look the same, there are 3 types of markers:

1. Filming locations for actual meaningful scene locales
2. Driving shots – where characters are moving in cars, these usually take no more than few seconds, mostly to indicate that they are moving from one locale to another (as opposed to a meaningful long driving scene, like a chase, which this movie doesn’t have)
3. Establishing shots

Each driving marker has an arrow indicating the direction, and most of establishing shot markers show a transparent triangle indicating what city view is seen.

As you can see, some 95% of the locations are very close together, and there are further clusters of them within, which often made it much easier to look for something, meaning that you know it’s gotta be somewhere close, just because Bay filmed another scene right around there. Recognizing that often saved me time.

You can just click through the locations in the Unique Locations layer of the map, it’s almost like you watched the whole movie real quick 

 

I counted 217 distinct scenes in this movie. I guess the methodology of what constitutes a scene can be contested, and I don’t know if there are any standards.

Identified 83 unique filming locations, all of which I cover below.

39 are in Miami, 30 are in Miami Beach, 5 in Bay Harbor Islands, 2 in Coral Gables, 1 in Opa-locka, and 6 in unincorporated county (though 5 of them are basically together).

Due to the size of this, breaking it into several individual posts below.

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 1-4

 

1. Sun Gym – a very well discovered location.

As @Tom noted in Miami Miscellaneous, at some point it used to be the Admiral Vee motel.

After the motel closed in the 60s, for some time it was a club owned by American comedian Paul Lynde. Most recently, it seems to have lost its splendor.

I went to the location and saw boarded up windows and all entrances shuttered in a way that looked quite permanent. The sign says Biscayne Medical, which is a center specializing in STDs including HIV, but it doesn’t look like it operates from there anymore. It’s a bit confusing that the signage “gazebo” on the corner of the building (see image above) has a number of businesses listed – those are not in this building, but in the shopping center right behind it. The Midpoint shopping center claims to originally be Miami's first suburban shopping center. Not sure when it was built. This shopping plaza is also used as another locale later in the movie.

I suspect this gym interior was a set:

Later in the movie there is the tanning glasses scene taking place in the gym:

Note the trellis pattern behind them. It is something generally characteristic of MiMo (Miami Modern architecture) and I thought it was unique to this building, but I since saw at least 2 other buildings in Miami with exact same architectural element. This trellis also features in the gym job interview, behind Lugo:

The problem is, looking at today’s Biscayne Medical, you can only see this pattern on the ground floor garage exterior (see the Street View pic above). There could be more of it inside the building somehow. In fact, some of it disappeared over the years, below is a shot from the movie, and the same place a year later.

So I’m comfortable enough concluding both the interview and tanning bed scenes are done in this same location, rather than another building in Miami with exactly the same trellis.

As the cops arrive, we see a Chinese restaurant (as noted by @airtommy), which since then cleaned up with better landscaping and fresh paint, replaced by an Italian restaurant.

One thing I noticed generally was that places in Miami seem to be repainted quite often, many cases in point later below.

There is also now a cool mural on the wall of the shopping center, next to which Lugo was running before getting hit by a police car.

More on the movie screnshot above, there is an interesting building far in the background behind Lugo. Built in 1963, it used to house the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, since then replaced by 3 different agencies (USCIS, ICE, CBP) moving to Kendall, Hialeah, and Liberty City. Back in the day, the building was generally an unremarkable concrete box, but with wonderful vertical trellis panels giving it a MiMo flair. It vacated in 2008 and today sadly looks like it’s begging for a demolition coup de grâce.

It was supposed to be incorporated and converted into a mixed-use complex, reportedly funded by Chinese investors seeking green cards (“investor visa”), but the development was bogged down in legal quagmire. Interestingly, that Chinese-owned company, as mentioned in this article, was also involved in some controversial trailer park dealing I heard about before.

 

2. Establishing shot, showing South Beach hotels and condo buildings just north of Ocean Drive:

 

3. Establishing shot, a beach and then a hotel pool. This is at Deauville hotel.

I covered this hotel in Miami Miscellaneous, and since then it was demolished.

Admittedly the beach could be anywhere else, there is no way to tell, so I just assume they shot it right outside of the hotel due to scene sequence. The sky looks like it could indeed be the same day and nearby location.

Missing among the buildings in the movie, on the right, is the Monte Carlo building:

Monte Carlo hotel was built in 1948 by a Roy France, an architect who “designed dozens of prominent hotels in Art Deco and Post War Modern styles adapted to local conditions. His advice regarding design was, 'Let in the air and sun. That's what people come to Florida for.'”

Here is a 1973 postcard:

It was demolished and rebuilt from scratch in 2014:

My understanding is that it is a hotel apartments building and not a regular condo building.

 

4. Investment venue where Lugo is fooling some rich retirees. This is inside Deauville’s hotel ballroom, as can be identified by the window shape and wall paint colors.

It is also later used as the venue for Jonny Wu event:

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 5-12

 

5. Lugo’s apartment. This is one of my favorite locations in the movie. Imagine not even parking, but kinda casually dropping your car at your door and running up to the second floor of a cozy little apartment building, while surrounded by the best experiences of Brickell.

This little spot is probably living out its last days in the back of Mary Brickell Village before a developer razes it. Over the last 10 years you can see the Flatiron and Millecento buildings erected in the back in 2019 and 2015, respectively. Note also it was repainted since the movie filming.

 

6. Kershaw’s home, later Lugo’s temporary home. Covered in Miami Miscellaneous by @Tom.

 

7. A taqueria shown for few seconds, where Adrian works becoming disgruntled.

This is Taquerias El Mexicano on Calle Ocho close to Brickell. I was lucky enough to eat there before it closed “temporarily” for a long time. The best part to me was the ventanita at which you could drink not just coffee but also alcohol.

The good news, the bars from the windows are gone, maybe as a sign of gentrification. I hope it will reopen.

 

8. Paul arrives at a church in Miami. I covered this in detail in Miami Miscellaneous, it is Apostolic Mission of Christ in Edgewater.

Building in the back was repainted since the movie came out:

For a while I wasn’t sure if the next shot was actually done in the church:

Because there is no such door/wall anywhere on the church which you could see on Google Maps from the street. It took me a personal visit to verify – it’s behind a second gate, in the courtyard:

At the end of the movie, Paul gest arrested inside the same church:

I happened to be visiting the church on January 7th, which is Russian Orthodox Christmas, and the church turned out to be a Russian Orthodox church. I met some Americans inside who spoke Russian.

It is actually an old building, by Miami standards – I was told it was over 100 years old. From what I see online the current use by the Orthodox only started in 2015, which conflicts with the fact that some of the congregation folks I spoke to said they attended the church back when the movie was filmed. Father Peter invited me to come join a service some time. Bewilderingly, the service is only in Spanish.

Here are some more photos from the church:

 

9. An establishing shot of the strip club – an easy one, the zebra-painted Wynwood Building as pointed out by @Tom.

Wynwood is changing rapidly. Since then, a large commercial space building was built behind it:

 

10. Strip club interior. In real life, Lugo frequented a strip club called Solid Gold, and that’s the name we can see on the podium with poles in the movie:

Well maybe they just filmed this in that actual Solid Gold club? The building is in North Miami Beach, but it’s been called Dean’s Gold for years. There was another Solid Gold club, in Fort Lauderdale, which was since demolished and moved to Pompano Beach, so those wouldn’t work if only because they are too far north, but they also have shorter interior space.

After doing some strip club research… I figured no local strip club could stand for this Solid Gold locale in the movie. Nothing matches the size and design of the interior space. The most obvious clues were: two rounded staircases in the back going to a 2nd-level podium behind a glass railing, with another mid-level podium right below it:

And 2nd floor space with people walking around:

Plus the fact that the girls are suspended from even further above, the whole thing must be at least 3 floors high. Not enough space inside the Wynwood building either, in case they just wanted to build a set there from scratch.

I looked into popular night clubs in Miami (E11even and Space) but the clues didn’t work. Then there was serendipity. I was re-watching War Dogs, also filmed in Miami 3 years after Pain & Gain. At some point the main characters sit in a night club, and lo and behold – it is the same space, just without the podium!! Later in the movie they call it by its name – LIV. I knew of LIV, but forgot to check it originally…

LIV is not exactly a strip club, so they just built the podium and poles for the movie. It is within the Fontainebleau hotel, which is also used later in the movie as a luxury hotel where Paul and Sorina are staying burning through the cash.

 

11. Behind the strip club, Lugo is banging Sorina. Pardon the language, but this just can't be called love making:

This was actually shot just around the corner from the “strip club” – remember the new large commercial building pointed out above? This was at the building which stood there before it.

 

12. Strip club’s back door.

This was a locally famous sunbathing girl mural, just off Biscayne Blvd in Design District. Funnily enough they put up a fake door on it. Sadly it was removed in 2019/2022 and then replaced by another graffiti which doesn’t measure up to its predecessor.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 13-23

 

There were two locations for which I “cheated”.

When I was stuck for a long while, I called filmiami.org. I learned about them when looking for the #BallardHouse from To Have and To Hold. They are supposedly keeping track of filming in the Miami area. Before you ask, they got nothing on Miami Vice… their tracking only holds the last few years apparently.

They couldn’t help me much with Pain & Gain either, but after bumping around between different phone numbers, I found a very engaged young lady working for Miami Beach. She was able to pull up some permit files. FYI, here is how you can generally request stuff: go to miamibeachfl.gov -> City Hall -> City Clerk -> Public Records/Laserfiche where there will be this link (so obviously you can just use this link right away, just showing you the path…): miamibeachfl.justfoia.com/publicportal/home/newrequest and there you can enter your request in a free form.

After some time I got a PDF with over 100 pages of permits that Pain & Gain production team used. As the lady on the phone warned me, it was but a small part, yet all they had. On the other hand, they weren’t limited to Miami Beach – it was county-wide documentation.

I reviewed all of them, and they probably covered 10% of the actually used locations. Most of the permits were never used. E.g. “we are booking this intersection… and will need parking for production trucks… and we’ll film a guy riding a bicycle along the Xth Street for a while…”. Well, there is no such scene in the movie.

At the discovery stage where I was, they were mostly useless to me, but I did find two locations of interest. In hindsight, I would have absolutely found them anyway.

 

13. This is the first of the two locations – Adrian’s apartment building, where this shot was all we had:

As I explore the Dade county a lot, the second I saw this building, I knew I saw this architecture before, and in two different locations. I used the addresses of the ones I knew and found out these are called Joe Moretti apartments – affordable housing named after a former member of the Miami Housing Authority Commission. Once you know that, you can find all of them. Most are concentrated in Little Havana between the SW 4^th and SW 6^th Streets and SW 4^th and SW 8^th Avenues, a rectangle to the left of our Jose Marti Park.

This is my another favorite location. I just think this architecture and colors are very Miami. All 4 clusters above look the same:

However, none of them had the feature of two adjacent buildings sharing a staircase! Well, that’s the one the permit docs helped me find – it’s on the other side of I-95.

More importantly, it was demolished pretty much right after the movie was filmed, in 2014. Per Google Maps, there is now a parking lot and an empty lawn.

Note the newer tall building behind the parking lot – It is also called Joe Moretti. I suspected the tenants were moved there. I went to the location and spoke to some residents and confirmed that.

It is public housing where the rent is capped at 30% of the person’s income, very nice. There are mostly elderly people of various ethnic backgrounds. One nice gentleman let me look inside, and they have a good lobby and a large meeting room as an amenity.

This building was built by the Related Group. If you ever looked into local development, you must know Related, they build a lot, especially affordable housing, but also some notable big towers in Miami.

While I was there, I discovered that Google Maps really cannot keep up with Miami – that lawn and parking lot (and the rest of the block to the west of them) are no longer there! There is now another construction site:

This is also being built by Related and will include affordable housing. You can read more and see some renders here. While this new construction site took away the parking that the Joe Moretti new tower residents had, which is said to be back, they are given parking in a huge 12-floor garage a block away. Since even a block away (and crossing a busy road) can be too much for the elderly, they are provided with complimentary shuttle going back and forth. Great to see that they are taken care of!

As Miami development spills over across I-95 into Little Havana, the other old Joe Moretti apartment complexes might be “converting” too. In fact, I found a county documentation referring to another one I showed above (two buildings on SW 6^th St and SW 6^th Ave) as “Joe Moretti Phase 2B”.

 

14. Back to church where Paul beats up the priest for making some gay advances. This is my third favorite location!

First, it’s completely fake – it is not part of that church. Second, it gives you a whole bunch of clues, but none of them too strong. Third, it turned out to be very close to the actual church, which was a great example of Bay filming everything nearby. I found a “filming of” video which showed some other angles of this scene and gave me new clues or strengthened the old ones.

This is one block away from the church, in an abandoned lot. It’s hard to case it through Google Maps, I cannot even find a time view where there would be any fence (possibly was a set), but based on the windows and roofs around it is 100% that location.

 

15. Some bridge where Lugo picks up Paul:

This is 41^st St bridge in Miami Beach.

 

16. A driving shot, this is MacArthur causeway going west, starting at the Star Island bridge:

 

17. Another driving location in the same sequence. By the time their conversation is over, they are about to get into Miami:

 

18.   Johnson Firearms. A real-life location in Midtown, as found by @airtommy:

It was repainted since, and is currently unoccupied:

 

19. A shopping center where the gang fails to kidnap Kershaw.

This is a cool location because it’s the same shopping center pointed out in location #1, just looked at from another side.

It got repainted since.

 

20. Schlotzsky’s where abductors succeed:

Pointed out by @airtommy. Another MiMo example, the building has a Jimmy John’s inside in real life, so a semi-honest choice of a location for Kershaw’s sandwich place!

 

21. Some outskirts of the city where the gang attempts a little intermediary torture:

In reality, this middle of nowhere is still east of I-95, just few blocks away from the Wynwood Building of location #9.

Interestingly, these two billboards appear to always run some safe sex campaigns, so maybe they are owned by a social organization.

 

22. Warehouse Eagle’s Nest – the gang’s base.

Pointed out by @Tom in Miami Miscellaneous where @airtommy and myself also provide more detail.

I will only add here that there is another scene which is done right there, even though it’s not clear in the movie where they are:

Took me some time fishing for those boat masts and residential buildings… to again learn Bay just stuck around close. This wasas at the back of Mark’s Cleaners:

The back of Mark’s Cleaners is also where Paul waves cute hello to a gated community booth lady while grilling human remains:

It is an entrance to Sunset Islands, and since then the booth was moved to the middle of the road:

 

23. Kershaw's office, where Paul searches for something to help them get the money out.

This is another one of my favorite locations. You immediately see the trellis pattern outside the window, but where can that be? All the answers were in the door reflections in the first second of the scene when Paul is opening the door from the outside.

Here you can see that there is a relatively large road with a median which has a lawn, a hedge, and royal palm trees. There are really not many places I could think of with such combo, and after ruling out Brickell and South Beach, I was drawn to Bay Harbor Islands because I already had 2 locations there (from later in the movie, #s 29 and 54). There were also some blurred building reflections in the door narrowing down the search along Kane Concourse, and there it was, Paul entering through this door:

This is another MiMo building, called Jack Justice Building. Here are a couple of other nice examples from the linked article:

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 24-36

 

24. No-effort establishing shot:

Obviously looking south off the Green Diamond condo tower with a few notable buildings in the view, most immediately Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels.

 

25. Another easy establishing shot:

We catch both most famous Miami skyscrapers on the right (Southeast Financial Center and Miami Tower) and the Hyatt hotel in the center-left which will soon be demolished to be replaced with a megaproject consisting of one 95-story supertall and two 61-stoy towers.

 

26. Lugo’s new apartment, discussed in Miami Miscellaneous – it is the easiest to nail down from seeing the neighboring skyscraper in the window which is Ten Museum Park:

 

27. Establishing shot solved by @airtommy in Miami Miscellaneous. Really heavy on condos (as opposed to hotels like South Beach). I’m pointing out an empty space which in 2021 was filled with a posh, just 20-unit condo building 57 Ocean:

 

28. Flagler Dog Track west of Little Havana where Adrian is stealing Ruben from a dog racetrack. It now only functions as a gambling house (I provided context on this one in Miami Miscellaneous).

 

29. Robin’s apartment – a Bay Harbor Island location, explained in Miami Miscellaneous.

The building on the left has these stilts feature, which I believe is also an element of MiMo. A great example of this is recently built Mr. C hotel in Coconut Grove (owned by the Cipriani family with other businesses around Miami):

 

30. Florida Savings & Loan. An easy one solved in Miami Miscellaneous as the Bacardi building in Edgewater.

 

31. An easy establishing shot of downtown.

 

32. Under a highway junction, the gang is trying to set up Kershaw’s death. This is municipal Lot 15.

In Miami Miscellaneous I incorrectly determined it was lot 33 next to it.

 

33. Entrance of this big parking lot - the gang running away and cops entering the lot. I factored this out into its own location just to determine that they use the same exit/entrance.

For the gang, it can be identified by a bush pattern and matching young tree shape:

Mirrored in Google Maps as Street View only allows us to look from the outside of the lot:

With the cops, the camera aims a little higher and we can see a distinctive ramp support:

 

34. A bridge. When the cops are arriving, we get a glimpse of the SW 1^st St bridge before it was demolished and just recently rebuilt:

For some reason, they moved the bridge control booth to the other side:

 

35. Kershaw’s ward and later the hospital to which the gang comes to finish him.

This is certainly a favorite of mine, if only because of how much time I spent finding it.

Bay made the hospital look fake to me. Look – every single person outside the hospital is either wearing scrubs or stethoscope:

And the building itself just literally says Hospital!

There is no way this would be a real hospital, right? But it must be some public building I figured. Landscape looked like Miami Beach, but I checked Downtown, Coconut Grove, and other areas just in case as well. I had two more decent images of the building, including in Lugo’s shades reflection:

I am embarrassed to acknowledge how much time I spent combing through the neighborhoods looking for this building, before I decided to look at the interior scenes for more clues, and there was a gift right away as they exit the elevator:

Miami Heart Institute, so it is a real hospital! Ironically, it is no more. It was converted into the Ritz-Carlton Residences Miami Beach.

Would you pay millions for living in what used to be a ward? Doesn’t feel too luxury.

Here’s a wonderful piece of memorabilia of the Institute from this Facebook page:

 

36. A driving location as the gang is driving to the hospital. Driving very precisely towards the hospital along W 47th Ct, they are passing houses numbered 1015, 1001, and 951:

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 37-53

 

37.  Detective’s house, as identified by @airtommy.

 

38. A driving shot. Once the gang concludes, incorrectly, they’re all good with tying up loose ends, there is a reel of them enjoying life, some locations already used before, and some are new starting with this driving shot of Paul and Sorina in Paul’s new Chrysler Prowler:

This is leaving Miami Beach through MacArthur Causeway, with The Waverly condo buildings identifiable in the background. They were repainted since then:

 

39. Another driving shot of this sequence. They are then seen driving back, with Downtown in the background:

 

40. Establishing shot of Ocean Drive. Apparently Bay is infamous for recycling old footage, and here is an example. This new location is really two distinct takes, but I combined them into one location because they are so close…

The first one is moving forward along the water, presumably towards Ocean Drive. I suspected this footage was recycled from Bad Boys (with some color correction). Pain & Gain:

Bad Boys:

The second one is of Ocean Drive with the Colony Hotel in the center:

In the far back you can see Downtown and Brickell skyline. Looks a bit skimpy for 2013 don’t it? Let me zoom into that skyline and put it side by side with the opening credits of Bad Boys:

Well, look at that, buildings match one to one, it’s 1995 skyline! Now I’m convinced the water shot was reused as well.

 

41. Ocean Drive. Next location is Paul and Sorina are downstairs at the Boulevard Hotel doing coke and feeling happy:

 

42. Some beach where Adrian proposes to Robin:

A row of similar lifeguard towers with big buildings in the far back help identify Haulover Beach:

 

43. New house. After the proposal, Adrian buys a house for $100,000 in cash, found by @Tom:

 

44. Fake new home location. This is another one of my favorite locations because it took me a while. The real estate agent tells somebody over the phone that the couple is so happy they are “dry-humping”:

Per the scene, she should be standing in front of them, looking at them, but with that background that’s clearly not where she is.

I looked around in the immediate vicinity of the sold house and still couldn’t find it. Ultimately, I had to go by the leads I had in the frame. White sidewalk, no curb, decently sized grassy area between the sidewalk and the road. The fact that the sidewalk is white on its own was ruling out pretty much all Miami Beach. Lack of curb helped too, and I ultimately was back to the sold house area, which already had 3 locations (Sun Gym, detective’s house, Adrian & Robin’s new house):

And what do you know, this was right in front of the detective’s house! Why, whyyy??  Why not shoot it in front of the house where it should be in front of by the plot, and rather shoot it in front of another unrelated location nearby?!

 

45. 7 Seas Motel where Kershaw is healing up, an easy real location as the front desk guy says its name over the phone.

As many other locations, the motel got a new paint job since then:

If you pay close attention, you will also notice that the sign Free Wi-Fi is there in place of the sign that said Welcome in Mandarin. Chinese folks not welcome anymore?

 

46. Real estate agency. Remember I said in #13 that I cheated with two locations by using the permit data? This is the second one – detective visits the real estate agency:

If you look at the doors and windows, you can figure out it needs to be a corner office. You can decipher some writings on the door looking into the reflections in the neon sign, e.g. it says ‘car rentals’ and ‘Italiano’:

Vegetation outside plus the activity and overall feel says Miami Beach. So you need to find a corner office in Miami Beach which in real life is a real estate or travel agency. Shouldn’t be too hard. I tried to use the name of the real estate agency/agent from location #43 (the office has the same on the binders on the desk), but they appear to have been faked for the movie.

And then I found it in the permits… few blocks away from few other locations. It’s a condo building on Collins and 18^th St, with offices on the first floor, right across from the Shelborne hotel. I actually went to check out the location, and the neon sign and different time zone clocks are still there.

   

47. Establishing shot, looking at Mid Beach over the La Gorce island, with the Blue Diamond at the very right of the frame:

 

Next few locations are all part of that robbery by Paul, which I broke down in much detail in Miami Miscellaneous, so I’m gonna keep it short here.

 

48. Lincoln Rd and James Avenue in South Beach, where Paul hits a money carrier with a golf club, takes the bags, and runs north on James Avenue:

He must have run for a while because in the next scene he appears 50 blocks north, at the now demolished Deauville hotel

 

49. Hair salon at 6644 Collins Ave which he crashes into running from the cops:

It was Pat’s International Beauty Salon then, and currently it is Mr. Blendz Barber Shop place.

He takes the back door out into a fenced off alley:

 

50. A Chinese restaurant he enters through the back door, the cops closely on his tail, shooting indiscriminately:

Some commercial locations change tenants often. At the time this was the South Sea Chinese Restaurant. It appears to have closed in 2015/2016 and the space went over to an Argentinian place Parrilla Liberty. The Argentinian spot closed (and moved to Washington Ave close to Ocean Drive) in 2020/2021. Another Argentine ChimmiChurri was there for a year or so. And finally, currently there is the Broken Eggs Café. I visited the café:

Looked empty but an employee told me the business is doing really well, so maybe they can hold on to that location longer than their predecessors.

Paul exits through the front door onto what we know is a Walgreens, here’s the full path:

 

51. Bonita Drive to which Paul teleports some 4 blocks further up north:

The typical Miami Beach 1978 building in the back is another example or repainting over the last 10 years (and losing a nice flowery bush):

Off the street he climbs the stairs of 7110 Bonita Dr and jumps into the water:

This building is another case of fresh paint since 2013:

 

52. A waterway. He then appears in the water near the pedestrian bridge on the 24^th St.

One thing to point out here is the building behind the cops on the bridge:

Named Helen Mar, it is a truly prime example of Miami Art Deco:

I was recently on that bridge speaking to a stranger, a local lady, who was adamant the building is the only true Miami Art Deco in the whole of the Beach, pushing on that the corner windows must have 3 sections each side and not any other number… Well, these windows are really cool from the inside too:

Miami Design Preservation League has a great article about the building. Sitting directly at the footbridge which will take you to the beach in minutes, this is an amazing place to live… Here’s a good condo sale listing... I think if I were looking for a bachelor’s condo close to the beach, this could be the one.

 

53. Ankara hotel. After diving back in, chased by the bullets, Paul is shown again at the 71^st St bridge where he jumped in. However, he is then shown again near the 24^th St pedestrian bridge, inside the pool area of the then dead Ankara hotel. Apparently since I covered this in Miami Miscellaneous the hotel was relaunched under Hilton as The Gates. I wish they’d rather keep the original name, but it’s being open is better than closed anyway.

This chase overall is another favorite location(s) for me because it’s so weirdly spread geographically and involves a lot of locations exuding unmistakably Miami Beach vibes.

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 54-65

 

54. A driving shot of Lugo and Adrian going to detective’s house.

They are for no plot reason driving at the top of the eastern Bay Harbor Island. The Coral Sea tower behind them brings another example of a MiMo style trellis. Here is a photo I took on location.

In fact, this is how I discovered this location – I was there to try and get into the apartment complex where Robin lives in the movie. Which I couldn’t do… but as I turned my head around, I saw this building and took another location off my list… Again, Bay putting things real close together.

 

55. Another driving shot of this sequence. The duo continues the ride, but suddenly on another Bay Harbor Island. I found this one the last of the three (3^rd one below), knowing it has to be in the vicinity of #54 and #56, noticing only Bay Harbor West Island has street lights of this shape, using the shadow/sun location to determine their direction, the fact that he is turning the steering wheel at the end, and ultimately matching up the vegetation, lamps, and a lonely power line pole in the far back. Tying it all up by a barely seen house… It sounds simple once it’s done, but this one took me forever. Not making it easier, Google only has one time period available for this street in Street View – 2018.

 

56. Another driving shot of this ride. This location took me a long while. They are driving around some tiny park, where we see different elements like dog poopy bag station and segments of white fence. Vegetation looks like Miami Beach rather than Miami. I tried all the parks I could think of, was coming back to working on this location many times.

Ultimately, since there was what looked like a USPS box, I went to USPS website and pulled up locations of all collection boxes in Miami Beach.

After few checks, there was a good match… The white fence was removed sometime between 2014 and 2018. The lesson – always tune the Street View time to the right year, otherwise the search might be completely useless.

 

57. Establishing shot of South Beach hotels, immediately to the north of the nighttime establishing shot of this area in #2.

As another example or color shifting, the Marseilles hotel was repainted grey a couple of years after the movie following an extensive renovation:

More interestingly, the other hotels north of Marseilles all the way to the end of the block (before you hit the 18^th St and the Shelborne hotel) are currently fenced off for a major redevelopment, bought out for $243M by this New York developer guy. Thankfully, he “plans to build a new 175-foot luxury condo tower and restore the Raleigh, South Seas and Richmond hotels” so there are no demolitions in plans, though I do worry about the 3 underground garage floors. More details and renderings in this recent article.

I went to the location and here’s what the restoration process looks like:

The signature pool area looks intact:

What is facing demolition are the Shore Club buildings – see this article with details and renderings of the future mixed-use building.

The Continental Hotel is no longer continental but got back its historic Nautilus name after a redevelopment by a very young company Arlo Hotels out of New York– see details in this article.

I like the interior design combo of “Miami, the 1950s and nautical references”

and in my opinion the new entrance looks better:

Another thing you can see in this establishing shot is the top of the building on Collins/18^th where on the first floor the detective was speaking with the real estate agent earlier.

 

58. Shelborne hotel. Another obvious one – we get on the roof of the Shelborne hotel where the detective is trying to convince his friend police captain to go after the gang.

 

59. Dilapidated Miami Marine Stadium where the detective berates Kershaw:

 

60. Supposedly near Kershaw's home, this is a tiny scene and also a favorite of mine due to how odd it is. Lugo is at his/Kershaw’s home, pissed things are not working out, and smashes his barbeque grill with a shovel. Then he makes a call to Paul to greenlight the new operation – that against Griga. So he is supposedly pacing around his backyard, or somewhere close, while talking on the phone for just few seconds:

This cannot be anywhere near that house in Coral Gables. We have a hill, with a couple of branchy trees close to the top of this hill. Then some palm tree tops further in the back. Miami is flat as a mirror – where can we get hills? I figured this could only be a golf course. After a quick check, I found that Miami Beach courses have plenty of this kind of trees, and palm trees of course. I went to the Miami Beach Golf Club and talked to some guys who promised to call me back after checking with some old timer. They later confirmed that the movie was filming there, and even gave me a more concrete spot on the course. The old timer even turned out to have a photo together with Mark Wahlberg!

 

61. Griga’s house in Miami Beach near Sunset Islands, covered in detail in Miami Miscellaneous by @Tom and @airtommy:

There are also different sources saying this was at the time Bay’s own house. Other sources say he lives across the road at 1350 W 29th St.

  

62. First driving shot of several in different locations as Lugo and Paul go to Griga’s house and back, starting with them getting off the Rickenbacker Causeway bridge’s eastern end:

 

63. A driving shot which is just a little trickier. The number of cars parked perpendicular to the road on which they are moving indicates this would rather be Hobie beach to the east of the Rickenbacker Causeway bridge than the parking area to the west of it. And then we can nail it down by certain clues like these 3 palm trees followed by a smaller palm tree:

 

64. A driving shot at Julia Tuttle leaving Miami Beach:

 

65. A diving shot at Julia Tuttle entering Miami... and immediately leaving it:

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

LOCATIONS 66-83

 

66. A driving shot. Now they need to transport the bodies from Adrian & Robin’s house to the base. The first location of this sequence is in front of the Deauville hotel:

If that trellis on the wall didn’t make you recognize the hotel, a nice giveaway is the partially seen name of the Sherry Frontenac hotel.

 

67. The next driving shot, they are on Biscayne Blvd near the Metromover line. For a while I couldn’t figure out where exactly they were and mistakenly said in Miami Miscellaneous they were moving north. These shots are often less than a second long, with background blurred… Now I finally found what to anchor too, and they are actually moving south, about to cross SE 1^st St.

The orange thing called my attention, and needless to say it is no longer orange, again the importance of always switching to the correct time period (if you have the luxury of it being available).

 

68. The drive continues under the pedestrian bridge of the Adrienne Arts Center:

 

69. The final driving location of this sequence is another arbitrary jump, to Sunset Islands:

It took me a while to figure this one out because I didn’t realize the bridge wall/fence had gaps, it looked solid to me, but then I looked at its shadow.

 

70. Home Depot where the gang is picking up body dismembering supplies, in Coconut Grove, given away by the roof shape:

 

The next few locations are the furthest away as they needed some middle of nowhere Everglades feel. Once I determined their general location, I knew they all must be very close together.

 

71. This driving location is defined by the power lines and the lake in the back.

 

72. This driving location, I have to admit, is a partial guess based on the poles next to the road:

Finding the big tower which we see on the horizon would be a good confirmation, but I wasn’t able to do it. The problem is, Krome Avenue was completely redeveloped after the movie and there are no good satellite/Street View images to figure it out. Given the remoteness of this location to what can be interesting, I just made a call based on the poles.

 

73. The next driving location contains the gift which let me find this overall location in the first place – a sign saying Mack’s Fishing Camp, a real business:

 

74. The body dump site which I’m not 100% positive on – I think there is a slim chance they filmed dumping and recovering the barrels at slightly different locations, maybe just some 100ft from each other. But I put the market on the map judging from a more definitive shot of the recovery.

 

75. The police department, an obvious one, assuming the interior was also shot on location:

 

76. Near Everglades again as Lugo and Adrian are driving back to the city:

Unfortunately, there are at least a couple of locations nearby where this could be done:

I picked the first one because of the state of the road, though these things can change quickly, and it is closer to the barrels recovery location.

 

77. A bridge near the city - Lugo is on the run using Kershaw’s speedboat, so Coast Guard is called in:

This is totally a rip of footage made for Bad Boys II in 2003. As I recently noted in a True Lies post, that pier on the left (west) side of Rickenbacker Causeway bridge was removed sometime in 2010, so this can’t be Pain & Gain 2013 footage.

Here are these Coast Guard choppers in Bad Boys II:

See the police chopper in Bad Boys II shot above? It carries Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The shot below is from Pain & Gain, with the same police chopper though nothing was said about it in the plot:

 

78. Nassau downtown, but really Lugo is at Coral Gables’ city hall:

One of my favorite locations because of how they used the different architecture of the Gables to stand in for Bahamas.

 

79. More of supposed Nassau with the detective and Kershaw landing, but this is Opa-Locka executive airport:

 

80. Bahamas bank interior played by the DuPont building in Downtown Miami as pointed out by @airtommy:

I really wanted to check out this magnificent lobby and vaults in person. The access doesn’t appear to be restricted, when I visited some crew was setting up a wedding in that whole space, so it currently rents out as events venue.

Another, smaller, vault door:

The most wonderful elevator doors!

 

81. An establishing shot. Helicopters bringing everybody back to Miami:

Bad Boys II steal. This is the most egregious borrowing from the at the time 10-year old movie, because anybody tracking Miami development at least a little bit would immediately notice how relatively empty the Brickell skyline is… Sad Bay didn’t have some more money/time to make this fresh.

 

82. Establishing shot of the Dade County Courthouse:

This is as straightforward of a location as it gets obviously, but what’s not straightforward about it is that we never get to see the inside of it.

 

83. The courtroom is in another building few blocks away in Downtown:

It was easy to find through the big mural behind the judge. The courtroom is inside the David W. Dyer Federal Building, currently leased (for 115 years) to Miami Dade College. The mural is titled Law Guides Florida Progress and can be found in high resolution here.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

IRRELEVANT LOCATIONS

 

Outside of the 83 unique locations above, there are 9 locations that I deemed irrelevant because they are not in Miami and usually also impossible to find or are sets. There are very few of them.

1. An establishing shot, sunrise over M I A M I letters. This is a “set”. These don’t exist in Miami. Bay used variations of this made-up sign 10 years prior in Bad Boys II and before then in Bad Boys. This could be shot in Miami, but doesn’t really matter where because you don’t see any details in the movie anyway.

Bad Boys (1995):

Bad Boys II (2003):

Pain & Gain (2013):

 

2. The courtroom from Lugo’s past. I just have no idea where this is, and also don’t care much as there is nothing special or Miami about it.

 

3. A Sears store where Lugo is trying out a lawn mower. Have no idea.

For one, there are no more Sears stores in Miami area, the company has not been doing well over the last 10 years and has been closing them left and right. This could also be a set. There is also nothing Miami about this scene, so...

 

4. Prison where Paul was doing time "up north":

There is a prison with such a name in New York.

This one is clearly not there as they weren’t careful enough not to show palm trees:

So it is probably in Miami area, but since this is a place I cannot visit (and hope not to) it’s kind of irrelevant. It doesn’t help that Google Maps don’t really show detention/correctional facilities with any level of detail.

I am interested to know whether the church shown as inside this prison was indeed inside the prison used for filming or was done in some other Miami church separately.

I guess in all honesty I should count this location unknown and not irrelevant…

 

5. Sorina’s trip from Romania through Mexico to the US. There are some shots of Southwestern United States, but nothing in Miami so don’t care:

 

6. A medical center where Adrian meets his future nurse girlfriend. Whether this is a real hospital or a set, there is nothing interesting about it.

 

7. An establishing shot of Nassau:

I looked around some islands briefly and didn’t find out what this is, but it’s clearly not Miami.

 

8. Dade Correctional Facility church:

Same as with #4 above – this church was probably not done in the actual prison, but who knows.

 

9. Penitentiary where Lugo is sitting on his death row:

Not really interested in knowing whether this prison is somewhere in Dade…

Edited January 8, 2023 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

MISSING LOCATIONS

 

OK so I lied in the title – these were not ALL-ALL locations.

I couldn’t find 3.

These 3 are one of those stupid locations which are not really worth it:

• The scenes are few seconds short
• There is nothing notable about those places once you find them
• They are hard, mostly in the sense that they take a ton of menial scanning through Google Street View…

Once you’re at 95% though, you really wanna get to 100%... so I did give them some effort, but at this point I’m throwing in the towel so I can go back to normal life 

 

1. A house. The first missing location would come before #8 in the main list and is kind of interesting. It’s a house “up north” where Paul got pinched in a failed burglary attempt:

I think we can be pretty sure it wasn’t filmed anywhere up north but was just filmed in Miami with fake snow and Christmas trees to make it look more northern. The two indicators of that are the grass which you can tell green even in the darkness of the scene, and what appears to be hurricane shutters on the window.

The house could be easily identified by the two columns at the entrance and relative position of the window and what could be a garage. So it’s a matter of taking a stroll with Google Street View. I did for a bit, but since I couldn’t narrow down the search to a particular area the scan was just too massive for me.

 

2. A driving shot. The second missing location would be before #36 in the main location list above. It’s another driving shot in the same driving sequence of the gang going to the hospital.

I analyzed it frame by frame, and there are some clues that could be pointing to some very unique location.

They are driving by:

1. A row of royal palm trees, at least seven can be seen
2. Behind the palm trees there is sometimes what appears to be an orange wall, sometimes tall hedging
3. Behind the wall/hedging there is other vegetation characteristic of bigger richer houses
4. There are no power line poles or street lights
5. At some point we catch a glimpse of some structure (possibly a bus stop, though unlikely) and some small road/lawn sign with four short rows of green text, illegible
6. The speed appears to be too high for a residential street, but the vantage point might be misleading in speed estimation, or the road might have been blocked off for the filming
7. The shadows are not too conclusive, but they appear to be moving eastbound, southbound, or something in between.

The other driving location from this driving sequence was close to the hospital building (now Ritz Carlton residences, location #35) to which they are driving. It would be logical (I guess not with Bay) to have this location close there too. But there is nothing like this around. Really, I couldn’t think of a place in Miami or Miami Beach where such a combination of factors exists. Maaaybe Sunset Islands (didn’t match), or some other gated islands which you can’t even see through the Street View. It’s something you get more often in areas like Kendall further south in Miami-Dade. I gave up.

 

3. A driving shot. The third missing location is in the same driving sequence! After the above and before #36. We have two main clues – the house we see behind the car, and an intersection reflected in Lugo’s shades.

Again, after a while I just gave up on this one.

If anybody can take a stab at these 3 (wink-wink @Tom?), I’d be very interested to hear your thinking process for finishing them off.

Concluding this little project, if you are interested in the original real story, here’s a good article, not too short and not too detailed, published shortly after the movie came out: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pain-and-gain-the-real-life-story-behind-miamis-murderous-sun-gym-gang/

Bodybuilders, strippers, cocaine, murder… Some would say this is only-in-Miami kind of story.

[miamijimf]

Amazing work Paul - very impressive.  Good Miami movie, I have it on DVD.  I bought it mainly because of my interest in the locations in this movie that were also seen in Vice.  It is kind of painful to watch because of the stupid decision(s) made by the main characters.  There are other movies and Burn Notice that deserve this location finding.  They are also within our perview IMO because Vice started it all.

[Paul Veres]

34 minutes ago, miamijimf said:

Amazing work Paul - very impressive.  Good Miami movie, I have it on DVD.  I bought it mainly because of my interest in the locations in this movie that were also seen in Vice.  It is kind of painful to watch because of the stupid decision(s) made by the main characters.  There are other movies and Burn Notice that deserve this location finding.  They are also within our perview IMO because Vice started it all.

I thought @C Glide had Burn Notice on his website. I really enjoy doing this, but need a break before my wife divorces me  this Pain & Gain hobby took a lot of my time non-stop over the last couple of months and every trip to town included a "by the way honey we gotta stop at a few places look at some tree and some wall and some construction site" etc  "and a strip club!!"

Edited January 9, 2023 by Paul Veres

[airtommy]

Stunning work!   

I've looked at this building many times, but I can't remember if we saw it on Vice.  At night maybe?

[miamijimf]

3 hours ago, Paul Veres said:

I thought @C Glide had Burn Notice on his website. I really enjoy doing this, but need a break before my wife divorces me  this Pain & Gain hobby took a lot of my time non-stop over the last couple of months and every trip to town included a "by the way honey we gotta stop at a few places look at some tree and some wall and some construction site" etc  "and a strip club!!"

Funny Paul, I can appreciate your situation.  CGlide has an excellent section on Burn Notice on his site but several locations remain unknown.

[Crockettt]

7 hours ago, airtommy said:

Stunning work!   

I've looked at this building many times, but I can't remember if we saw it on Vice.  At night maybe?

This building is seen in "Goilden Triangle (Part II)". 

[Tom]

vor 23 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

MISSING LOCATIONS

 

OK so I lied in the title – these were not ALL-ALL locations.

I couldn’t find 3.

These 3 are one of those stupid locations which are not really worth it:

• The scenes are few seconds short
• There is nothing notable about those places once you find them
• They are hard, mostly in the sense that they take a ton of menial scanning through Google Street View…

Once you’re at 95% though, you really wanna get to 100%... so I did give them some effort, but at this point I’m throwing in the towel so I can go back to normal life 

 

1. A house. The first missing location would come before #8 in the main list and is kind of interesting. It’s a house “up north” where Paul got pinched in a failed burglary attempt:

I think we can be pretty sure it wasn’t filmed anywhere up north but was just filmed in Miami with fake snow and Christmas trees to make it look more northern. The two indicators of that are the grass which you can tell green even in the darkness of the scene, and what appears to be hurricane shutters on the window.

The house could be easily identified by the two columns at the entrance and relative position of the window and what could be a garage. So it’s a matter of taking a stroll with Google Street View. I did for a bit, but since I couldn’t narrow down the search to a particular area the scan was just too massive for me.

 

2. A driving shot. The second missing location would be before #36 in the main location list above. It’s another driving shot in the same driving sequence of the gang going to the hospital.

I analyzed it frame by frame, and there are some clues that could be pointing to some very unique location.

They are driving by:

1. A row of royal palm trees, at least seven can be seen
2. Behind the palm trees there is sometimes what appears to be an orange wall, sometimes tall hedging
3. Behind the wall/hedging there is other vegetation characteristic of bigger richer houses
4. There are no power line poles or street lights
5. At some point we catch a glimpse of some structure (possibly a bus stop, though unlikely) and some small road/lawn sign with four short rows of green text, illegible
6. The speed appears to be too high for a residential street, but the vantage point might be misleading in speed estimation, or the road might have been blocked off for the filming
7. The shadows are not too conclusive, but they appear to be moving eastbound, southbound, or something in between.

The other driving location from this driving sequence was close to the hospital building (now Ritz Carlton residences, location #35) to which they are driving. It would be logical (I guess not with Bay) to have this location close there too. But there is nothing like this around. Really, I couldn’t think of a place in Miami or Miami Beach where such a combination of factors exists. Maaaybe Sunset Islands (didn’t match), or some other gated islands which you can’t even see through the Street View. It’s something you get more often in areas like Kendall further south in Miami-Dade. I gave up.

 

3. A driving shot. The third missing location is in the same driving sequence! After the above and before #36. We have two main clues – the house we see behind the car, and an intersection reflected in Lugo’s shades.

Again, after a while I just gave up on this one.

If anybody can take a stab at these 3 (wink-wink @Tom?), I’d be very interested to hear your thinking process for finishing them off.

Concluding this little project, if you are interested in the original real story, here’s a good article, not too short and not too detailed, published shortly after the movie came out: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pain-and-gain-the-real-life-story-behind-miamis-murderous-sun-gym-gang/

Bodybuilders, strippers, cocaine, murder… Some would say this is only-in-Miami kind of story.

Great work! And I understand the effort you put into this. I briefly looked into the 3 open cases, but these scenes are so short and fast cut that it is hardly impossible to find this with reasonable effort (even when focusing on Miami areas with other locations it would take weeks to find the house and the driving backgrounds; let alone that what is seen in this short snippets is not really visually so rewarding to be found ). I will rather focus on the last MV locations unknown.

Talking about the drive scenes, I would assume that they shot only a few drive stretches and then used snippets throughout the film, so all drive scenes should be close to each other or at least part of the same long stretch along a few logical routes. At least that is what normal productions do, but with Bay such logic may be wrong.

I do not dig Bay´s hyper-hectic back and forth cutting style at all. One chase scene where he used 5+ different locations across 60 blocks throughout what was supposed to be one chase stretch of a few seconds, left me rather annoyed than fascinated. He amassed too many locations like he tried to break a record. Often less is more, especially if you cut so fast that no one can really catch the location anyway.

[Paul Veres]

22 hours ago, Tom said:

Great work! And I understand the effort you put into this. I briefly looked into the 3 open cases, but these scenes are so short and fast cut that it is hardly impossible to find this with reasonable effort (even when focusing on Miami areas with other locations it would take weeks to find the house and the driving backgrounds; let alone that what is seen in this short snippets is not really visually so rewarding to be found ). I will rather focus on the last MV locations unknown.

Talking about the drive scenes, I would assume that they shot only a few drive stretches and then used snippets throughout the film, so all drive scenes should be close to each other or at least part of the same long stretch along a few logical routes. At least that is what normal productions do, but with Bay such logic may be wrong.

I do not dig Bay´s hyper-hectic back and forth cutting style at all. One chase scene where he used 5+ different locations across 60 blocks throughout what was supposed to be one chase stretch of a few seconds, left me rather annoyed than fascinated. He amassed too many locations like he tried to break a record. Often less is more, especially if you cut so fast that no one can really catch the location anyway.

Thanks Tom, and by the way congratulations on figuring out the Miami Squeeze art café - finding a current photo of Adele Cohen with the guerilla painting was an awesome icing on the cake!

To your driving scenes production comment, I looked into them now specifically and pulled out all 7 driving sequences, here they are in plot order (also added them as separate layers to the same linked map).

Driving sequence 1. Lugo picks up Paul at (1) and they drive through (2) and (3):

This one's geography makes the most sense from the plot point of view.

Driving sequence 2. The gang is going from Lugo's apartment (1) to the hospital (3):

This is the one with the two missing driving shots - they would come before (2). (1) is irrelevant because the movie doesn't show how they drive off the apartment, so (2) and (3) being so close would really make you think the two other driving shots should be right there.

Driving sequence 3. Paul and Sorina going from strip club (1) trough (2) and (3) to the hotel at (4).

This one would make decent sense if not for (2) going opposite way and wrong order.

Driving sequence 4. Lugo and Adrian going from the 7 Seas motel (1) to detective's house (5) through (2), (3), and (4).

Since the movie doesn't show them driving off and arriving, (1) and (5) are irrelevant, and this sequence makes the most sense of all of them from the filming point of view, keeping (2), (3), and (4), so close to each other. Makes no sense from the plot point of view of course.

Driving sequence 5. Lugo and Paul going from Adrian's house (1) to Griga's home (4) through (2) and (3), and then coming back through (5) and (6).

The coming back part at least could make sense geographically by plot, if (6) was directed west.

Driving sequence 6. The gang is taking the bodies from Adrian's house (1) to the warehouse (6), through (2), (3), (4), and (5):

This one makes particularly no sense.

Driving sequence 7. Lugo and Adrian are taking the barrels from the warehouse (1), not in screenshot, through (2), (3), and (4), to dump them at (5), and then go back through (6):

This one generally can make sense geographically, and filming makes sense because they all needed to look similar as a middle of nowhere.

Anyway, still doesn't help with the missing driving locations. I don't particularly care about the #3 missing location because it's just some house in the background, OK. But #2 missing location keeps me interested because I'm completely puzzled at the general availability of such background mix in the area.