Review of Pain & Gain (2013) by Eric H — 04 Jan 2015

I feel conflicted about this movie. On the one hand, it's a super-charged piece of entertainment that's mostly funny, and shot with a lot of style. This is probably Michael Bay's best-directed film and, in a change of pace for the filmmaker, it might even make you think. It also features a charismatic, yet utterly despicable, turn from Mark Wahlberg as a body builder-turned-extortionist, and a truly stunning performance from Dwayne Johnson as a born-again Christian getting sucked back into old, bad habits (seriously, The Rock can act..).

However, in a satire that's based on a pretty horrific true story, it would have been nice if Bay could have restrained himself a little more than usual. He still has a knack for gratuitous violence, gratuitous homophobia, and gratuitous misogyny, and it comes off as more insensitive than usual considering he's making a film about real people. Much of the violence is played for laughs and the women are treated as objects to be ogled or mocked. It's a little hard to stomach at times, but if you can handle the director's crass tendencies there's actually a small little gem of a crime-comedy here, buried under the muck.