A trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.
Michael Bay's action-comedy is compelling for long stretches, but ends up being exhausting.
A scabrous satirical swipe at not only the knuckle-headed machismo the director seems so enthralled by, but also at an America crippled by consumerism.
A heavy-handed and unfunny attempt at comedy.
Michael Bay goes back to a Bad Boys budget and a big boys’ rating, for a true-life crime story that’s inconsistent and frenetic, but also funny and wilfully outrageous.
Wahlberg is a hoot as the delusional Lugo. Johnson gives his best performance yet and the charismatic Mackie (The Hurt Locker) displays Eddie Murphy-like comic chops.
Despite downsizing his usual budget, Bay hasn’t shed any of his crassest teenage boy impulses. Pain & Gain has a lot of time for fast cars, snickery homophobia and scatology.
I laughed a couple of times (Rebel Wilson does another of her weird comic turns) which is exactly twice more than I've ever laughed at a previous Michael Bay movie.
The movie needed some more detachment – and brevity – but Wahlberg shows once again he has the comedy chops.
Pain & Gain feels like a missed opportunity for the director to, if not quite atone for, then at least comment on the way he’s debased blockbusters in the years since then by delivering explosion-filled action movies with a willful disregard for engaging stories.
The mode is black comedy of a peculiarly violent kind, the year 1995; and as their behaviour becomes increasingly wild, Bay flashes up on the screen the caption "This Is Still a True Story". I rather enjoyed it.
Not without the occasional aesthetic charm, but mostly as loud, brash and air-headed as its protagonists.
The true story behind Pain & Gain
General release. Check local listings for show times.