Wow.  It is difficult for me to rant on “Pain & Gain” simply because nothing horrendous happened in the movie that can get me started.  Actually, I can leave out the “horrendous” adjective and just leave it as: nothing happened.  It was incredibly slow-moving and I didn’t like the characters.

A quick recap: it’s based on a true story (reportedly) where you have a few numbskulls — Marky-Mark, The Rock/Dwayne Johnson, and Papa Doc from “8 Mile” — who decide to turn gangster in a kidnapping and extortion scheme….that, of course, goes awry.  On Netflix, it’s described as a criminal-comedy…but it was certainly not funny.  “Pain & Lame” would have been a more apt title, but it wouldn’t get people into the seats, so I understand the version that they elected to adopt.

This movie was not any good, in my opinion.  The characters were all incredibly annoying — which is unfortunate because I tend to like Marky-Mark movies, and the Rock/Dwayne Johnson I have enjoyed in a few of his movies; I’ve only ever seen Papa Doc in “8 Mile” but no complaints there — I liked it when he said “Let that bitch go first” (it’s a line that I use from time to time when playing volleyball with friends, and the inevitable question of “who serves to start” comes up; it let’s them know that I’m here to play ball).

 Getting back to “Pain & Gain” — there’s not much to say about it aside from what really bothered me, the most, were the characters.  They were annoying; and it feels like a longer movie than it is (run time is 129 mins).  They’re a collection of macho-guys who are really rather wimpy, complain a lot, and, ultimately, are characters that you just want to go away.  Their mistakes and err0rs are blatant to the point that you know what is going to happen later in the movie.  So yeah, it’s not any good and, if you haven’t seen it yet but have seen movies of a similar genre, then you have already seen this movie — trust me.

It’s probably not bad enough to make my Top 10 Worst Movies That I’ve Seen…. but it’s on par with “Spring Breakers” (which was also

Michael Bay is quickly becoming a thorn in my side.  The last time that I saw Michael Bay and smiled was when he was in the Sketchers commercial (where Kenny Powers takes control of Sketchers)….and that has been a few years.

Update:  When expressing my displeasure with the movie on Facebook, one of my friends commented saying that I was being too hard on it, and that, really, the beginning and the end were great — it was just the middle part that sucked.  <sarcasm> So, I suppose, that is a fair point.  </sarcasm>  Anyway, he then sent me the link to the “true story” that the movie was based upon and I realized why the characters were, by and large, really annoying — in reality, there were more than just 3 guys; I believe 5-6, by my count.  And, so, that makes sense.

When you take a storyline that involves 5-6 guys botching a kidnapping/extortion and then boil down their personalities, backgrounds, and follies into 3 GUYS, then, of course, it’s not going to make a lot of sense.  I kept thinking: “Geez, these guys are really, really dumb” — turns out, though, that they were actually upping the dumbness to account for the 2-3 dumb guys that Marky-Mark, the Rock, and Papa Doc assumed…. in addition to their own dumb characters.

Anyway, I continue to bat a pretty high average when it comes to watching a trailer and guessing on whether or not it will be good.  I remember seeing the trailer for this one and not being impressed, and I was right.  It’s on Netflix, right now, so if you haven’t seen it, and want to, at least you’re not going to have to pay theater prices for it, because it definitely is not worth it.

-Ryan.