Pain & Gain

Directed by Michael Bay

(R)

**

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“Who knew Michael Bay had a sense of humor?” said Chris Nashawaty in Entertainment Weekly. This first stab at comedy from the director of such straight-faced spectacles as Armageddon and the Transformers series eventually loses its way, but its first half has “a fizzy, kicky, caffeinated energy.” In a tale based on a true story, Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie star as a trio of obtuse Miami gym rats who decide to kidnap and extort money from a wealthy workout client, and “it’s all fun and games” until the caper turns disturbingly violent, said David Hiltbrand in The Philadelphia Inquirer. What makes the abrupt shift in tone “all the more jarring” is that Bay doesn’t seem to realize that the comedy has evaporated. Or maybe his sense of humor is simply darker than we could have imagined, said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. Pain & Gain is “a deeply cynical film”: It critiques mindless violence, consumerism, and vulgar humor even as it revels in all three. Whether you end up considering it savage satire or a sickening wallow, “it’s hard not to respond to.”