Review of Pain & Gain (2013) by Hoops2448 — 01 Sep 2013

As Michael Bay wants us to know, Pain and Gain is based on a true story, something mentioned twice during the film as to make the point that stupid things happen in this world, a point that seems so important to remind people of that Bay makes his characters stereotypical morons, even when things get serious.

When personal trailer Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) discovers one of his clients is insanely rich he decides to kidnap him and steal his things. He enlists the help of evangelist Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and his friend Adrian (Anthony Mackie) to help him pull it off.

While trying to be a true crime tale of three people doing horrific things it lacks any kind of fun but Pain and Gain is not a crime film, Sure it's a film about a crime and its story is definitely true but at its heart.

Pain and Gain is a surreal comedy as the actions of this trio of idiots really do make toy laugh out loud. The inner monologues that writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have given each and every one of the three leads helps add context to this twisted tale but most of all it gives you a healthy wallop of hilarity as their inner most thoughts show them to be the dense yet oddly lovable people they are, with Dwayne Johnson being excellent as religious ex criminal Paul, a man who only really finds himself doing these things because of peer pressure (despite the quite obvious fact he is a grown man).

Admiring these criminals for how far they got on limited smarts is part of the films charm but the film lacks an ending and the comedy peters off when things start hitting the fan and real people, as Bay has so subtly reminded us, start dying.