Pain & Gain

Rated 3.0

Director Michael Bay delivers the rare decent film with this crazy concoction based on a true story. Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie play a trio of bodybuilders who decide to kidnap a rich guy (Tony Shalhoub) and force him to sign over all of his assets. The kidnapping plot nets them the dough, but greed and general stupidity result in the plan going south and people dying. Bay uses the story, based on the real-life shenanigans of Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) to poke fun at the '90s, give Wahlberg a chance to get laughs Wahlberg style, and provide Johnson with his best role yet. The movie contains all of that stuff that makes Bay such an annoying director (slo-mo, hyper-editing, etc.), but it works because the actors pull it off.