( CNN ) -- What was it Jane Fonda used to say ? `` No pain , no gain . '' She was n't talking about punching a guy in the face , handcuffing him to a chair for days and weeks on end , stringing him upside down like a piece of dry-cleaning , setting him on fire ( feel the burn ! ) and running him over with a van , but these nuances can get lost in translation when an ambitious young man takes it into his head to improve his lot in life . Such is the plot of `` Pain & Gain . '' Daniel Lugo ( Mark Wahlberg ) is like Don Vito Corleone : he believes in America . His heroes are the self-made men -- like the Corleones , like Scarface . The guys who started with nothing and made it happen for themselves . Do-ers , not don't-ers . Daniel believes in America and he believes in fitness , and having proved his worth by attaining the physique he always wanted and tripling the membership at the Miami gym where he works ( primarily by offering free memberships to strippers ) he reckons he deserves the rest of the package : the big house , the boat , the sports car , the money . And so he hatches a `` three-finger plan . '' With two bodybuilding buddies ( Anthony Mackie and Dwayne Johnson ) , he snatches a wealthy client ( Tony Shalhoub ) and tortures him until he signs away all his property and assets . Surprisingly , this works . The gang 's gross incompetence and double-digit IQ is matched only by the indifference of local law enforcement . Although he 's famous for his boys ' toys movies ( `` Transformers , '' `` Armageddon '' ) , let 's not forget Michael Bay cut his teeth on the slick buddy cop movie `` Bad Boys , '' which filmed in and around Miami at much the same time as Daniel Lugo and pals were chopping up body parts with a chainsaw and an ax . Does that make this self-styled `` small movie '' a more personal , mature work than his blockbusters ? Well , it 's R-rated , which means Bay gets to indulge his sexism and casual homophobia more explicitly than usual , albeit roped to a scattershot satire of dumbbell self-improvement culture and rampant egomania . Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have shown a knack for hardboiled black comedy before , notably in `` You Kill Me , '' and it 's easy to imagine that the Coen brothers could have fashioned something sharp and funny out of this dismal true story . But even if he 's obviously imitating `` Burn After Reading '' ( the Coens ' worst film ) and `` Fargo '' ( possibly their best ) , putting a satire in Bay 's hands is rather like presenting the keys of a stolen Lamborghini to a drunken teenager . It 's a fast ride , but it does n't take you where you want to go . This is a movie about stupidity and cruelty in which stupidity and cruelty permeate almost every scene . Bay does n't hold anything back -- everything is over-pitched and underlined in hot neon . If he 's braked his trademark action cutting , it 's only to go overboard on slow-motion so as not to miss a single drop of blood or perspiration . He casts broad comic actors like Rebel Wilson , Rob Corddry , Michael Rispoli and Ken Jeong in supporting roles while encouraging his leads to play it straight , but caricatures victims and criminals alike . They 're all contemptible in his eyes -- the women more than anyone . Israeli model Bar Paly plays an Eastern European stripper who is apparently so stupid she believes Daniel is a CIA agent . She 's also subjected to a throwaway gang rape gag for her trouble -- thanks for that , Michael . The scenes of violence -- played for gross-out black comedy -- are especially toxic . This crude and ugly entertainment is as crass as everything this depressingly successful filmmaker has done .
`` Pain & Gain , '' directed by Michael Bay , is based on a true crime story . The film stars Mark Wahlberg , Anthony Mackie and Dwayne Johnson . The director 's callous disregard for human suffering is plain to see .