Pain and Gain USA 2013 – 129min.

Movie Rating

Pain and Gain

Gaby Tscharner
Movie Rating: Gaby Tscharner

Two fitness freaks kidnap a businessman. Comedy thriller by Michael Bay, starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson.

Pain and Gain is the story of personal trainers Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), who sees his body as the incorporation of the American Dream. One day he gets tired of training rich guys and hatches a stupid plan: to kidnap his client Victor Kershaw and rob him of his wealth. He recruits his trainer pal Adrian (Anthony Mackie) and jailbird Paul (Dwayne Johnson) as accomplices. But Lugo's lame plan is doomed to fail, resulting in one catastrophe after another.

Who would have thought that Michael Bay had a sense of humor, given the macho director's all-too-serious action flicks like Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and the Transformers series? But Pain and Gain is a surprising gangster comedy that seems to have been copied out of Guy Ritchie's handbook. Instead of having Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie and Dwayne Johnson play silly idiots, Bay finds comedy in the absurdity of the events.

31.05.2021

4

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