Pain & Gain
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: April 26, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
20
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 2, 2013
The movie needed some more detachment – and brevity – but Wahlberg shows once again he has the comedy chops. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonAug 27, 2013
The ever-present air of madcap, goofball insanity carries it through. A seriously guilty pleasure. Read full review
60
EmpireMark DinningAug 26, 2013
Michael Bay goes back to a Bad Boys budget and a big boys’ rating, for a true-life crime story that’s inconsistent and frenetic, but also funny and wilfully outrageous. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramAug 24, 2013
Like all of Bay’s work, it’s over-the-top, brash and exhausting to watch. But like the lifestyle its characters aspire to, there’s an allure too. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 25, 2013
Wahlberg and Johnson are the saving graces of an in-your-face movie. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 25, 2013
It all leaves you pondering whether you have just seen a monumentally stupid movie or a brilliant movie about the nature and consequences of stupidity. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensApr 26, 2013
A day and half after walking out with a sensation, primarily, of physical relief—at two hours and nine minutes, Pain & Gain makes for a long, loud, relentlessly assaultive sit—I find that my thumb is wavering at half-mast. I’m still not sure whether to mildly like or mildly hate this movie. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 26, 2013
Nobody in it seems to possess a nervous system. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyApr 25, 2013
The script’s occasional gestures toward making this an allegory of the failed American dream are extremely unconvincing in the context of a movie that revels in the excesses of macho culture while laughing at the hapless and stupid who can’t get it right. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 25, 2013
That sense of extreme, excess, over-the-top everything is there from start to finish. And isn't that what Bay fans count on even at cut-rate prices? Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 25, 2013
A badly constructed, blood-spattered caper that comes unglued early on. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubApr 25, 2013
It's a homemade protein-and-steroids smoothie of a plot, combining elements of gore, self-parody, 1990s nostalgia overload and an attempt to say something -- while actually saying absolutely nothing -- about the American dream.
50
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandApr 25, 2013
Yep, it's all fun and games until someone gets brutalized repeatedly. Before you can avert your eyes, it's Katie, bar the door and break out the chain saws. Read full review
50
NPRScott TobiasApr 25, 2013
Bay blankets the film in a tone of smug self-awareness that obscures everything but its bald hypocrisy. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghApr 25, 2013
There’s a certain kinetic charm to the first half of the movie, a freewheeling silliness to these outsized characters that makes you curious to see just how wrong things will go. But as the weightlifters’ plot spirals out of control, so does the movie’s. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackApr 25, 2013
Yes, the canon invoked for this film is that of the Three Stooges, but it’s still not as magnificently berserk as they can be. Set your expectations carefully for this one. Read full review
50
VarietyScott FoundasApr 23, 2013
Bay can be a master of exuberant chaos, but here the violence mostly lands with a sickening thud, which is fitting, one supposes, but also ultimately numbing. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 24, 2013
The movie's best performance — and worst defamation — belongs to Tony Shalhoub, playing the first victim as a conniving, egotistical jerk who deserves to be kidnapped, maimed and ruined financially. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 26, 2013
This is a tragedy, not a comedy. Read full review
40
Village VoiceCiara LaVelleApr 23, 2013
When the story runs off the rails and crashes headfirst into a too-perfect ending, it's because Bay was led astray by the same things that got the Sun Gym Gang into this mess in the first place: superficiality, ambition, and the belief that reality just isn't good enough. Read full review
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