movie review pain and gain

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, pain and gain.

Now streaming on:

While Michael Bay originally conceived "Pain & Gain" as a "small movie" that he would make before his most recent " Transformers " sequel, nothing about Bay's new film is little. As we're repeatedly reminded throughout the film, "Pain & Gain" is based on a true story: Between 1994 and 1995, three Floridan body-builders tried to get rich quick by robbing and killing. 

In "Pain & Gain," Bay's typically vile brand of chauvinism is amplified in order to make a silly but grand cynical statement about the scam that is the American dream. Everyone in "Pain & Gain" is corrupt, decadent, or stupid because anyone involved in an American institution is participating in a giant pyramid scheme, including the Florida Savings and Loan, the Miami PD and the gum-chewing blonde at the local Home Depot. 

Bay and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (" The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ") don't hold back any bile here: With one striking exception, all of the film's characters are immodestly pathetic. "Pain & Gain" is irrepressibly sleazy, frequently exhausting and sometimes as bitterly funny as its creators think it is.

When we're first introduced to Daniel Lugo ( Mark Wahlberg ), he's running from a SWAT team in slow-motion as ropes of spit fly from his gaping mouth. After getting hit by a car, Lugo insists that it's the responsibility of all Americans to realize their potential. "All my heroes are self-made," Lugo burbles enthusiastically, adding that anyone who "squanders their gifts" is simply "unpatriotic." Lugo's delivering a sales pitch to us, and the product he's selling is the story of his failed get-rich-quick scheme. 

Together with fellow strongmen Adrian Doorbal ( Anthony Mackie ) and Paul Doyle ( Dwayne Johnson ), Lugo plots to kidnap and rob slimy entrepreneur Victor Kershsaw ( Tony Shalhoub ), a client at Lugo's gym. But Doorbal, an anxious man with steroid-shrunk gonads, and Doyle, a cocaine-addicted born-again Christian, are as simple-minded as Lugo is short-tempered. So while Lugo's failure is foretold in the film's opening scene, it's also treated as the inevitable conclusion to his story because almost everyone in "Pain & Gain" is a narcissistic dimwit. 

Throughout "Pain & Gain," anyone who aspires to authoritatively represent something bigger than himself is dismissed as a dumb shill. Priests are horny, weapons salesmen are Christian rock-listening tools, cops are presumptuous racists, and even Kershaw, the film's victim, is a loudmouthed opportunist. Kershaw is what Lugo wants to be, an aspiration confirmed when he sneers that salad was invented poor people. That's a Lugo-worthy line if every there was one. 

The teasing promise of more power, status, virility and money makes everyone myopically foolish. Bay rams home that point by juxtaposing the science-fair-worthy neighborhood watch poster boards Lugo makes to dupe his neighbors with the presentation that the Miami police chief gives to his men. In their own crude way, the film's creators are constantly howling about the pervasiveness of cultural indoctrination. They even go so far as to implicate themselves, if only just to prove they're not taking themselves seriously, when Lugo tells Doyle, "I watch a lot of movies, Paul. I know what I'm doing." 

The only competent/intelligent character in "Pain & Gain" is retired private detective Ed Du Bois ( Ed Harris ). Du Bois is unhappy in his retirement and doesn't like the idea of whiling away his remaining years playing golf or going fishing. He doesn't pursue Kershaw's case out of a sense of responsibility, but simply because it's a way to break up the tedium of his life. But even Du Bois is not infallible; to prove it he's afflicted with back pain, if only momentarily.

The pervasive juvenile nihilism inherent in "Pain & Gain" is mitigated by its creators' zeal for destructive social criticism. Bay makes some far-out creative decisions, like his sporadic use of randomly-timed inter-titles such as, "This is still sadly a true story," or a list of potential side effects of cocaine use, including anxiety and ejaculation. 

For his ostensibly small movie, Bay experiments with harness-rig digital camerawork and ostentatious tracking shots that pull viewers through pinhole-sized openings in walls and windows. As ambitious and vibrant as it is ugly and scattershot, "Pain & Gain" is the most charming Michael Bay movie in a long while.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

Now playing

In a Violent Nature

Clint worthington.

Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever

What Remains

Craig d. lindsey.

Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.

Brandon towns.

Kaiya Shunyata

Robot Dreams

Brian tallerico, film credits.

Pain & Gain (2013)

Rated R for bloody violence, crude sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use.

130 minutes

Mark Wahlberg as Daniel Lugo

Rebel Wilson as Ramona Eldridge

Dwayne Johnson as Paul Doyle

Ken Jeong as Johnny Wu

Ed Harris as Ed Du Bois

Anthony Mackie as Adrian Doorbal

Tony Shalhoub as Victor Kershaw

Rob Corddry as John Mese

• Michael Bay
• Christopher Markus
• Stephen McFeely

Latest blog posts

The Hard Way, Or My Way? RIP Bill Cobbs (1934-2024)

Catherine Breillat Wants You to Think About (Movie) Sex Differently

Sundance x Chicago Brings Film's Premier Festival to the Windy City

Home Entertainment Guide: June 2024

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

How to Help Kids Spot Misinformation and Disinformation

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

Pain & gain, common sense media reviewers.

Violent, stupid, offensive, unfunny "true crime" story.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The entire movie is about greedy characters who ar

The main character decides to go after what he thi

Characters are kidnapped and beaten up. There are

Several topless women are seen in a club scene. Th

Language is extremely strong and nearly constant.

Characters shop at a Home Depot, twice. A characte

One of the main characters is a recovering cocaine

Parents need to know that Pain & Gain is a vulgar, violent action comedy from Transformers director Michael Bay. The movie -- which was inspired by a real-life kidnapping, extortion, and murder -- is filled with shooting, chasing, fighting, and blood, as well as more gruesome, torturous images…

Positive Messages

The entire movie is about greedy characters who are trying to get ahead in the world by doing illegal things. Though there are consequences for their actions, the movie tries to make these activities look like fun (or at least funny). The movie also makes fun of large women, treats most other women as sex objects, and includes other stereotypes.

Positive Role Models

The main character decides to go after what he thinks he deserves in life. But that decision involves all kinds of illegal and shady activities. He bullies others into joining him, and he even bullies several kids while playing basketball. Another character starts out reformed and religious but winds up a murderer and a junkie. Even the movie's victims, the supposedly law-abiding citizens, are awful, hateful people.

Violence & Scariness

Characters are kidnapped and beaten up. There are several attempted (but failed) murders. A character is blown up in a car and then run over (he survives). Other characters are tortured (pliers to the nose, burning, more), killed (either by accident or on purpose), and have their bodies dismembered. Their hands are cut off and barbecued (!) to remove the fingerprints. There are several fight scenes with punching and blood. One character is slammed with a barbell weight, and another is squashed under a weight (lots of blood is shown). There's a chase and a shootout, and a character loses a toe. Cruelty/yelling between characters.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Several topless women are seen in a club scene. The main character has (comical) sex with a woman against the back of a car (no nudity shown). A character's stripper girlfriend is portrayed as kinky. A warehouse filled with sex toys/objects is shown. A character tries to masturbate (under his clothes) to a porn tape (nothing graphic shown). Women are generally treated as dumb sex objects, shown in tight exercise outfits. Lots of skimpy outfits (both male and female) in gym scenes. A character struggles with impotence as a result of the steroids he takes. A T-shirt with the Penthouse magazine logo is shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language is extremely strong and nearly constant. Words include "f--k," "s--t," "p---y," "c--k," "c--t," "d--k," "balls," "ass," "a--hole," "bitch," "t-tty," "hell," "damn," "goddamn," "crap," "vagina," "penis," "homo," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation), "oh my God," "whore," "slut," "turd," and more. Some disparaging remarks based on race.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Characters shop at a Home Depot, twice. A character wears a Nike tank top. The Penthouse logo appears on a shirt.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

One of the main characters is a recovering cocaine addict who relapses and starts snorting cocaine again. His problem is treated comically. Characters inject steroids at the gym to build bigger muscles. The main characters kidnap a man and force him to drink alcohol. Characters also occasionally drink wine and smoke cigars.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Pain & Gain is a vulgar, violent action comedy from Transformers director Michael Bay . The movie -- which was inspired by a real-life kidnapping, extortion, and murder -- is filled with shooting, chasing, fighting, and blood, as well as more gruesome, torturous images like barbecuing severed hands to remove the fingerprints. Sexuality is also prevalent in the movie; there's some female toplessness and comical sex, and women are treated as dumb sex objects. One character is a drug addict who tries to recover but fails; he's shown snorting cocaine, with results that are played for humor. Language is extremely strong and frequent, with constant use of "f--k," "s--t," and more. The fact that these greedy characters and their illegal, brutal plans are treated with humor makes this movie very iffy for just about any audience. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (17)
• Kids say (15)

Based on 17 parent reviews

This film is based on a true story sex, language,violence, lots of drinking, drugs and smoking

What's the story.

Daniel Lugo ( Mark Wahlberg ) -- a personal trainer at a Florida gym circa 1995 -- decides to be a "doer" so that he can get all the things he thinks he deserves. His plan is to kidnap a wealthy delicatessen owner ( Tony Shalhoub ) and get him to sign over his fortune. Daniel enlists the aid of two other weightlifters: ex-con/recovering cocaine addict Paul Doyle ( Dwayne Johnson ) and Adrian Doorbal ( Anthony Mackie ), who suffers from impotence as a result of his steroid use but has a predilection for large women. After some initial success, their plan goes desperately wrong, and all their brain-dead attempts to recover it result in disaster after disaster. The plot is based on a true story.

Is It Any Good?

Michael Bay , best known for his loud, explosive action movies, takes a step back with this relatively cheaper film, concentrating on fewer special effects and more characters. Unfortunately, this is like watching a chef doing the dishes; it's not his strong suit. PAIN & GAIN winds up being one of Bay's stupider and more tasteless efforts, though it's a good deal more tasteless than stupid.

Movies about dumb criminals can be highly entertaining ( Fargo , for example), but Bay sends his story spinning wildly over the top. His characters are aggravatingly idiotic, the mood is belligerent, and the pacing is erratic. But worst of all is the humor. Bay may be the least funny director alive, and he insists on using an endless array of cruel, horrible jokes -- about fat people, drug addicts, women in general, and just about everyone else. Only Ed Harris , playing a private detective, provides any dignity.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Pain & Gain 's violence . How is it depicted? Is it gross? Funny? Does it seem over-the-top or inappropriate?

How does the movie portray women? Are they judged by their body type ? Are there any positive female role models here? Stereotypes ?

How does the movie view male body image ? Is it positive or negative?

Are there any examples of bullying in the movie? Where and how?

What's funny about dumb criminals?

Movie Details

• In theaters : April 26, 2013
• On DVD or streaming : August 27, 2013
• Cast : Anthony Mackie , Dwayne The Rock Johnson , Mark Wahlberg
• Director : Michael Bay
• Inclusion Information : Black actors
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Run time : 130 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : bloody violence, crude sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use
• Last updated : February 27, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

American Gangster

Catch Me If You Can

Donnie Brasco

Best action movies for kids.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• A Quiet Place: Day One Link to A Quiet Place: Day One
• Inside Out 2 Link to Inside Out 2
• The Devil's Bath Link to The Devil's Bath

New TV Tonight

• The Bear: Season 3
• My Lady Jane: Season 1
• Land of Women: Season 1
• Orphan Black: Echoes: Season 1
• That '90s Show: Season 2
• Savage Beauty: Season 2
• WondLa: Season 1
• Zombies: The Re-Animated Series: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• The Boys: Season 4
• Presumed Innocent: Season 1
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• House of the Dragon: Season 2
• Eric: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• The Bear: Season 3 Link to The Bear: Season 3
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

The Bear : Season 3 First Reviews: Still One of the Best Shows on TV

A Quiet Place: Day One First Reviews: A Tense, Surprisingly Tender Thriller Anchored by Fantastic Performances

• Trending on RT
• 2024's Best Movies
• Most Popular Shows
• July's Anticipated Movies
• A Quiet Place: Day One

Pain & Gain Reviews

The felonies fall apart due to phenomenal stupidity - and audiences are supposed to laugh at the extreme amateurishness of this band of beefy crooks.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 4, 2020

Adds up to more pain than gain.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.0/4.0 | Sep 19, 2020

A tonally erratic and consistently irksome true-crime farce that plays out like a GoodFellas for Dummies.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 11, 2020

It might sound wrong of me, but Pain & Gain could be one of Bay's more decent watching films.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 16, 2020

Like watching a Day-Glo roid-rage explosion that will pump your pecks at the same time it shrivels your nards.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 9, 2020

It has genuine moments of comedy, which are swiftly undercut by off-putting violence.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 11, 2020

Director Michael Bay (war epic Pearl Harbor, 2001; five Transformers science-fiction movies, 2007 to 2017) does what he does best with this based-on-a-true-story comedy: He overstates.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 2, 2020

Incredibly silly and over-exaggerated, Pain and Gain offers very little in substance. But if shameless entertainment is more your thing, indulge away.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2019

Bay may be working with humans, but he's still treating them like robots.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2019

Bay's trademarks are there - the loud music, the slow-motion spin, the outlandish action moments. But this is also a movie with plenty of dark humor and a cast not afraid to be the butt of the joke.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2019

Bay's cold militarist aesthetic is perversely appropriate in Pain & Gain; the men treat themselves as hardware they can simply build up, so the film treats them as such.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 2, 2019

You may or may not laugh, you may or may not like the characters, but you won't be bored and you will exit the theatre amazed, if not actually stunned, by what unfolds here.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 26, 2019

...registers with all the smoothness of a lumpy protein shake going down a sore throat. Yes, there is plenty of Pain and questionable Gain for Bay's revved up farce of calisthenics cretins.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 17, 2018

If you want a dark comedy with no boundaries, Pain & Gain is one you need to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 1, 2018

Even one of The Rock's best performances cannot save the film from Bay's own excess and this is not one I will recommend to paying audiences.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Oct 10, 2018

Only half-right.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

There are so many up-angle, slo-mo, 360 camera pans that it starts to feel like every actor is standing on their own personal Sit 'n' Spin.

Full Review | Oct 21, 2017

For [Michael Bay], storytelling exists only to justify senselessly bashing some big shiny noisy stuff into other big noisy shiny stuff till your ears bleed for mercy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 5, 2017

It's just a piece of raucous vulgarity whose greatest virtue is the presence of Wahlberg and Johnson. They're amusing and oddly likable as two amoral, reprehensibly violent dopes.

Full Review | Jul 11, 2017

The most shocking thing about the new Michael Bay film is... not the orange, grunting criminals pumping a) iron, b) fists and c) other people, but the gradual realisation that this could be Bay's most intellectual film yet.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2016

Pain & Gain (2013)

• User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews
• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed

Film Review: ‘Pain & Gain’

Michael Bay directs this pulverizing steroidal farce based on a bizarre-but-true story

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

• Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
• Film Review: ‘The Runner’ 9 years ago
• Film Review: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ 9 years ago

The large-scale destructiveness he has previously wreaked upon public and private property (including entire cities), Michael Bay visits on the human body in “Pain & Gain,” a pulverizing steroidal farce based on a bizarre-but-true kidnapping-and-murder case. Suggesting “ Fargo ” by way of the Three Stooges , Bay’s latest certainly proves that the “Transformers” auteur does have something more than jacked-up robots on his mind: specifically, jacked-up muscle men who will stop at nothing to achieve their deeply twisted notion of the American dream. With a very fine ensemble cast recruited to play an array of overtly despicable characters, this unapologetically vulgar, sometimes quite funny, often stomach-churning bacchanal will surely prove too extreme for great swathes of the multiplex crowd. But the marquee value of topliners Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, plus the pic’s reportedly modest $25 million pricetag, spells more gain than pain for Paramount’s box office pecs.

Related Stories

Summer movie season testing 3d cinema’s recoverability, metallica brings fuel, fire and fury to 'fortnite festival'.

Given that every Bay film is something of a stamina test, marked by passages of intense exhilaration and paralyzing fatigue, with “Pain & Gain” the director may have lucked into the most fitting subject matter of his career: the world of obsessive bodybuilders and the trainers who push them beyond the brink of exhaustion. Adapted by screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (“ Captain America: The First Avenger ,” the “Narnia” trilogy) from a series of articles originally published in the Miami New Times by Pete Collins, the film tells of one such muscle mecca, Miami’s Sun Gym, where staff and clientele include a liberal mixture of strippers, ex-cons and small-time scam artists.

Popular on Variety

One such hustler is Sun Gym manager Danny Lugo (Wahlberg) who, in the fall of 1994, decides to abduct one of his clients, wealthy Colombian-American businessman Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) — and defraud him of his net worth.

To aid in the scheme, Lugo recruits two accomplices: personal trainer Adrian (Anthony Mackie) and former Attica inmate Paul (Johnson), a recovering alcoholic and junkie who found Jesus during his last stint in the slammer. After a couple of near-misses (in real life, there were several more), the trio — decked out in ridiculous Halloween costumes — succeed in nabbing their mark, who they sequester in an abandoned dry-cleaning plant and, over the next 30 days, force to sign over all of his worldly assets, including cars, a local deli franchise and a gaudy McMansion in a posh gated community.

In Collins’ reporting, the story of the Sun Gym gang reads like an inordinately malicious bid for the good life by a bunch of overcompensating he-men whose musculature vastly outpaced their intellect — their staggering incompetence rivaled only by that of the Miami-Dade Police, who, when Kershaw (in reality, Marc Schiller) miraculously survived to tell his tale, initially refused to believe him.

While sticking largely to the facts, Bay and the writers are clearly aiming for something bigger: a commentary on American self-entitlement and, to an extent, the very sort of ra-ra, macho posturing Bay has proffered without irony in many previous films. In contrast to the unconscionable thug he seems to be on the page, the movie’s Lugo is more of a harebrained dreamer who sees himself as one of life’s “doers,” high on self-help mantras and a sense of his own inviolability. Wahlberg’s deft performance, which plays on his innate likability to conceal his character’s ultimate menace (a side of the actor little seen onscreen since his fine turn as the psycho boyfriend in James Foley’s “Fear”), is one of the film’s (few) unqualified pleasures. But the movie’s cynical subtext, and whatever Bay is ultimately hoping to say with it, remain mostly undeveloped.

To its credit, “Pain & Gain” never succumbs to glamorizing its characters or their crimes, keeping things rooted in a constant, grim tension. For all its absurdist accents, the long middle section, in which Kershaw is beaten and bludgeoned by means that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in “Zero Dark Thirty,” is punishing to behold and dilutes much of the frantic energy the movie has built up during its opening act. And at 129 minutes, there’s much more to come, including severed digits, penile injections, a spinning weight plate to the neck and, in one unforgettable extreme-close-up, a cargo van’s rear tire backing up over a human face. At his best, particularly in the two “Bad Boys” movies, Bay can be a master of exuberant chaos, but here the violence mostly lands with a sickening thud, which is fitting, one supposes, but also ultimately numbing.

For better or worse — arguably both — Bay remains one of the most distinctive visual stylists at work in American movies today, and “Pain & Gain” is nothing if not an orgy of swooshing, swooping movements, super slo-mo, blazing pastels (for the exteriors) and glowing neon (for the interiors), all captured on an array of pro and prosumer cameras, both film and digital, that give the movie a luxurious array of visual textures. Bay, who previously shot Miami very well in his two “Bad Boys” movies, here turns it into a shimmering oasis of sin. One image, glimpsed late in the film, even feels like its maker’s entire career condensed into a single shot: wads of $100 bills laid out on a UV tanning bed.

The pic’s home stretch gets a welcome boost from veteran Bay player Ed Harris as the seasoned private eye who ended up blowing the lid off the Sun Gym case. He’s only around for a few scenes, but he slips into them with such masterly ease that the character seems fuller and richer than many with double the screen time. Women, unsurprisingly, are mostly expendable here, reduced to sex objects and convenient surfaces for snorting coke, though the resourceful Rebel Wilson manages to steal a few scenes as Adrian’s clueless nurse girlfriend.

Pain & Gain

Reviewed at AMC Loews 34th St., New York, April 18, 2013. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 129 MIN.

A Paramount release of a De Line Pictures production. Produced by Donald De Line, Michael Bay, Ian Bryce . Executive producers, Matthew Cohan, Wendy Japhet. Co-producer, Michael Kase.

Directed by Michael Bay. Screenplay, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, based on the magazine articles by Pete Collins. Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen, HD/35mm), Ben Seresin; editors, Thomas A. Muldoon, Joel Negron; music, Steve Jablonsky ; production designer, Jeffrey Beecroft; art director, Sebastian Schroeder; set decorator, Jay Hart; costume designer, Deborah L. Scott; sound (Dolby Digital/Datasat), David Husby; supervising sound editors/sound designers, Ethan Van Der Ryn, Erik Aadahl ; re-recording mixers, Scott Millan , Greg P. Russell , Jeffrey J. Haboush; visual effects supervisor, Pablo Helman; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Base FX; special makeup effects, KNB EFX Group, Inc.; stunt coordinators, Troy Robinson, Ken Bates; assistant director, Chris Castaldi; casting, Denise Chamian.

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Bar Paly, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong, Michael Rispoli, Keili Lefkovitz.

More from Variety

‘the bear’ sets cable debut with four-night season 1 marathon on fx ahead of season 3 release (exclusive), is netflix about to turn into a franchise factory, ‘perfect wife: the mysterious disappearance of sherri papini’ hits 3.6 million views in one week, biggest hulu docuseries ever (exclusive), ‘white collar’ reboot in the works, according to cast and creator: new scripts ‘honor’ willie garson ‘in a profound way’ (exclusive), regulators shouldn’t blow the whistle on venu sports just yet, ‘under the bridge’ eps unpack the finale and critique the true crime genre: ‘we did not want to make copaganda’, more from our brands, america lost the first biden-trump debate, this argentine winery believes it’s worthy of grand cru status—and it’s using science to prove it, scotus chevron rejection could upend ncaa, college athlete cases, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, lizzy musi, street outlaws: no prep kings star, dead at 33 after battle with stage 4 breast cancer, verify it's you, please log in.

Advertisement

Supported by

Movie Review

The Thick Have Their Needs, Too

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

• April 25, 2013

To describe “Pain & Gain” as a Michael Bay movie on steroids would be accurate but also redundant and a little misleading. Pumped-up, aggressive, muscle-headed entertainment is Mr. Bay’s specialty, after all, and while this grisly true-crime drama is partly about performance-enhancing drugs and the bulky men who love them, it is also, compared with “Armageddon” or the “Transformers” series, a stripped-down, modest enterprise in which no major American city is reduced to rubble.

This is not to suggest that the film, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and based on a series of articles by Pete Collins (published in Miami New Times ), is in any way subtle or restrained. The opening scene, a police chase from which the rest of the story flashes back, sets a tone of hectic excess. Mark Wahlberg, running from the heavily armed forces of law and order, dashes across rooftops and lumbers, sometimes in slow motion, through streets and alleys. The camera swirls around him, freezing as a glob of saliva pops out of his mouth, dropping down to allow us a peek up his nostrils and then tilting and sliding to register the impact of his face on the windshield of a car.

What follows is two hours of sweat, blood and cheerful, nasty vulgarity, punctuated by voice-over ruminations about Jesus, physical fitness and the American dream, along with a few tactical visits to a strip club. It all leaves you pondering whether you have just seen a monumentally stupid movie or a brilliant movie about the nature and consequences of stupidity.

Why choose? “Pain & Gain,” though it compresses some events and characters, hews fairly close to the facts as related in Mr. Collins’s deadpan chronicle of idiotic criminality and sloppy police work. Mr. Wahlberg plays Daniel Lugo, a personal trainer and bodybuilding enthusiast who lands a job at a Miami gym after serving time for an investment scam. Swearing that he has learned his lesson — that there is no substitute for hard work — he sets his sights on a South Florida vision of the good life, egged on by a self-help guru (Ken Jeong) who fills his head with slogans and three-point plans for success. “If I deserve it,” Daniel says, “then the universe will serve it.”

What he feels the universe owes him is more or less what a teenage boy raised on “Entourage,” Grand Theft Auto and the oeuvre of Michael Bay might demand, though, since “Pain & Gain” is set in 1995, not all of those inspirations are available to Daniel. But the world, then as now, is full of hot babes, fast cars and money, tokens of a high-rolling, hedonistic existence just beyond poor Daniel’s reach. He is motivated less by ambition than by a self-pitying sense of entitlement that is both democratic and Nietzschean. He says that he wants to be just like everybody else but also that he wants to set himself apart from the losers and suckers in whose ranks he unfairly languishes.

Anthony Mackie, Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in Michael Bay’s “Pain & Gain.”

Mr. Bay, left, with Mr. Wahlberg on the set of “Pain & Gain.”

Mr. Bay’s movies include “Bad Boys 2,” with Will Smith, left, and Martin Lawrence.

A scene from “Pearl Harbor” (2001).

A scene from “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (2011).

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Pain and Gain Review

Bay's best movie since the rock..

Transformers director Michael Bay proves he doesn't need pyrotechnics to make an entertaining movie in the darkly comic true crime tale Pain & Gain, featuring Dwayne Johnson in an impressive performance.

In This Article

More Reviews by Jim Vejvoda

Ign recommends.

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

Edelstein on Pain & Gain : Michael Bay Hits New Levels of Artistry and Sleaziness

Given that Michael Bay’s name is synonymous with deafening, overbudgeted sexist swill to the point where it even inspired a tuneful song about his suckitude in the South Park guys’ Team America: World Police , I often find myself in the position of defending him somewhat. Apart from Pearl Harbor and the synapse-frying second Transformers picture, he’s not that bad. Sometimes he’s even really good — his work is smashing, in all senses. Now he hits new levels of both artistry and sleaziness in the black comedy Pain & Gain , which I strongly recommend if you don’t overvalue taste, subtlety, and moral decency. I liked it.

Actually, the movie is not entirely unsubtle. Its star, Mark Wahlberg, is a comedian of surprising refinement. His secret is that he plays everything straight, finding a razor’s edge between bovine thickness and predatory cunning. As Florida personal trainer Daniel Lugo, his hair stands up in sweet ragamuffin spikes; he looks so dopey and innocent that you can’t believe he’d hatch a scheme to kidnap and seize all of the assets of a gym client, a half-Jewish, half-Colombian whole-asshole named Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub).

Ah, but Lugo is a man who believes that not to “go for it” is positively unpatriotic. The script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (based on magazine articles by Pete Collins based on — the titles inform us not once but twice — a true story) lays out the sociological parameters from the start. Lugo explains in voice-over that we are all born equal (physically and mentally) and can with sufficient singlemindedness and effort become, in effect, supermen and live in luxury. It emerges that to attain this American dream he will have to steal from Americans with similar dreams, but he does not — in the best Cato Institute tradition — let that slow him down. Let others feel the pain.

Dwayne Johnson plays Lugo’s partner in crime, Paul Doyle, an ex-con, ex-cokehead, and eternal meathead who has found Christ but also has had to cold-cock the priest who awakened and then put the moves on him. Johnson is broader than Wahlberg in both style and physique, his neck being wider than my shoulders. But there’s something very likable about him. Anthony Mackie is the third and even dimmer partner, whose penis we’re informed has shrunk on account of steroid use. The actor — here channeling Eddie Murphy — has not yet fulfilled the promise of Half Nelson and The Hurt Locker , but I imagine it’s hard to turn down a Michael Bay paycheck. It’s the American Dream.

This is Bay as we’ve not seen before, attempting a tour de force of style — montage plus narration in the tradition of Scorsese’s Goodfellas and such Danny Boyle hot-dog pictures as Trainspotting and the recent Trance . The Bay touch is the many shots from behind the long thighs and small butts of women in the gym and elsewhere, although he adds some Rebel Wilson cheesecake (she’s a nurse who likes black guys) to prove that big, small, he loves ‘em all, or at least loves exploiting them for laughs.

Ken Jeong plays a seminar-leading financial evangelist who ridicules “maybe” guys and counsels those who drink in his wisdom (including Wahlberg’s Lugo) to get off their “lazy American” asses. It follows that none of the actors gives “maybe” lazy-ass performances. Shalhoub’s half-Colombian half-Jew will be offensive to both Colombians and Jews (you actually see him in a yarmulke leading a Shabbos meal) but not so offensive that he’s not a howl. I love the guy.

Pain & Gain gives you a rush while at the same time making you queasy about how you’re getting off. Partly you’re supposed to be queasy because of the idiotic amorality of the characters — that’s what passes for dramatic complexity. Partly you’re queasy because Bay and company are active participants if not co-conspirators. Here, the director values — and gets high on — shock. As the film goes from straight-ahead satire to a mixture of Three Stooges slapstick and bloody violence, you can’t quite believe what you’re seeing and know on some level it’s wrong to feel pleasure. But that’s true of many movies, isn’t it? Discomfort is the price we sensitive souls pay. And, you know, no pain, no gain.

• movie review
• pain and gain
• michael bay

Most Viewed Stories

• Cinematrix No. 94: June 28, 2024
• The Bear Season-Premiere Recap: Perfect Means Perfect
• The Boys Recap: Bread and Circuses
• Against ‘Women’s Writing’
• The Bear Is Trapped
• Dark Matter Season-Finale Recap: Crisis on Infinite Jasons

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.