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Pain & Gain (15)

Comedy, Crime, Drama

A trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.


The critical consensus

Michael Bay's action-comedy is compelling for long stretches, but ends up being exhausting.

***(*)(*)Eddie Harrison, The List, 14/08/2013

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.

****(*)Chris Fyvie, The Skinny, 26/08/2013

A heavy-handed and unfunny attempt at comedy.

Chris Tookey, Daily Mail, 30/08/2013

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.

***(*)(*)Mark Dinning, Empire Online

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.

****(*)Henry Fitzherbert, Daily Express, 28/08/2013

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.

**(*)(*)(*)Siobhan Synnot, The Scotsman

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.

**(*)(*)(*)Anthony Quinn, The Independent, 29/08/2013

The movie needed some more detachment – and brevity – but Wahlberg shows once again he has the comedy chops.

***(*)(*)Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 29/08/2013

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.

**(*)(*)(*)Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 01/09/2013

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.

Philip French, The Observer, 01/09/2013

Not without the occasional aesthetic charm, but mostly as loud, brash and air-headed as its protagonists.

**(*)(*)(*)Adam Nayman, Little White Lies, 29/08/2013


Features about Pain & Gain (15)

The true story behind Pain & Gain

Jon Axworthy, The Guardian, 27/08/2013

Where and when?

General release. Check local listings for show times.

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