History Film / PainAndGain

** The end credits gives a WhereAreTheyNow overview with pictures of the actual people involved, both Lugo and Doorbal are significantly more average looking than Wahlberg and Mackie. Although Sorina (whose name was changed from the real life counterpart) looks remarkably similar.

** Carl Weekes and Stevenson Pierre were considered too scrawny at first to hang with Lugo and Doorbal. Their fictional counterpart Paul Doyle is played by Dwayne Johnson who bulked up more than usual, and weighs about as much as them combined.

* WomanScorned: [[spoiler: Adiran's wife divorces him so she can testify against him, which she uses to reveal for the record he has a small penis and finger-banged his lawyer (''"Whore."'').]]

* TitleDrop: Daniel mentions the phrase "pain and gain" when talking about fitness to a kid.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Paul Doyle. Though he continues apologizing.]]

* PsychopathicManchild: Daniel Lugo. He behaves like a little boy and throws temper tantrums over simply verbal insults such as when he berserkly beat up Frank Griga just for calling him an amateurish unprofessional businessman. In real life, Adrien Doorbal also fit this trope while the film depicted him as mild-mannered and calm.

* GagBoobs: The movie even lampshades the fact they happen to be plot relevant, [[spoiler: the manufacturer serial number of the silicone implants is what allowed the prosecution to identify the victims, turning the case from hearsay to hard evidence]].

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: Kershaw states that he is "half Jewish," in spite of being obviously observant. While it's common for nonreligious people with Jewish ancestry to describe themselves as being a portion Jewish, in religious terms there is no such thing as being "half Jewish." One is either Jewish or not. (Justified InUniverse as Victor, obviously terrified, hedges when the criminal who has kidnapped him asks "You're a Jew, right?")

* IdiotPlot: [[invoked]] Invoked and PlayedForLaughs. Daniel and his gang, for all their talk of superiority and hard work, are [[TooDumbToLive total dumbasses]], causing them to make a ton of stupid amateur mistakes that ultimately get them caught.

Daniel is a mainstay of the Miami personal fitness community, very proud of what he does but he has to work hard to make a living. Seeing a wealthy client of his, Victor Kershaw (Creator/TonyShalhoub), and knowing some of the underhanded tricks he pulled to gain his fortune, Daniel hatches a plan to steal his money and brings in his friends Adrian and Paul to help him carry it out. They prove themselves wholly incompetent, as even though they get Kershaw's money they were [[IronButtMonkey unable to kill him]], and his story is so outrageous the police don't give him a second thought.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paingainsmall_3337.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:And they screw their dream over even bigger than you ever could.]]

''Pain & Gain'' is a [[BlackComedy dark comedy]] [[{{Dramatization}} based on]] a series of 1999 ''Miami New Times'' articles by Pete Collins about "a couple of Florida steroid-abusing knucklehead bodybuilders who become criminals involved in an extortion ring and a kidnapping plot that goes horribly awry." It stars Creator/MarkWahlberg as Daniel Lugo, Creator/DwayneJohnson as Paul Doyle, and Creator/AnthonyMackie as Adrian Doorbal, and is directed by Creator/MichaelBay.

Daniel is a mainstay of the Miami personal fitness community, very proud of what he does but he has to work hard to make a living. Seeing a wealthy client of his, Victor Kershaw (Creator/TonyShalhoub), and knowing some of the underhanded tricks he pulled to gain his fortune, Daniel begins a plan to steal his money and brings in friends Adrian and Paul to help him accomplish it. They prove themselves wholly incompetent, as even though they get Kershaw's money they were [[IronButtMonkey unable to kill him]] and his story is so outrageous the police don't give him a second thought.

----

* CelebrityParadox: Sorina mentions the plot of ''{{Film/Pretty Woman}}'' at one point. Larry Hankin, who plays Pastor Randy, played a landlord in Pretty Woman.

* LineOfSightName: After moving into Kershaw's house, Daniel introduces himself to his new neighbor (while mowing the lawn) as "Tom... Lawn".
** Variation: Paul gains the gun shop clerk's trust by claiming they're security for a band whose name he sees on a sticker on a register.

* IdiotPlot: Invoked and PlayedForLaughs. Daniel and his gang, for all their talk of superiority and hard work, are [[TooDumbToLive total dumbasses]], causing them to make a ton of stupid amateur mistakes that ultimately get them caught.

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: Kershaw states that he is "half Jewish," in spite of being obviously observant. While it's common for nonreligious people with Jewish ancestry to describe themselves as being a portion Jewish, in religious terms there is no such thing as being "half Jewish." One is either Jewish or not.

** The biggest departure from the true story is that [[spoiler:Paul Doyle is not a real person, but rather a composite of multiple individuals who assisted Lugo and Doorbal in their crimes.]]
** The true kicker is the ending omitted the twist of [[spoiler: Victor Kershaw - who is a somewhat fictional version of the real-life victim Mark Schiller. Schiller fled to his family in Colombia after he left the hospital to escape further attempts to kill him, but returned to Florida to assist in the investigation and trial of the Sun Gym gang. After the trial ended, federal authorities immediately arrested Schiller for Medicare fraud; the feds had purposely waited nearly three years until the Florida prosecutors had no more use for Schiller. Had Schiller remained in Colombia instead, he might have avoided the federal charges. Additionally, some of the testimony against Schiller was from a Sun Gym gang member sentenced to 15 years for his role in the kidnapping of Schiller.]]

''Pain & Gain'' is a [[BlackComedy dark comedy]] based on a series of 1999 ''Miami New Times'' articles by Pete Collins about "a couple of Florida steroid-abusing knucklehead bodybuilders who become criminals involved in an extortion ring and a kidnapping plot that goes horribly awry." It stars Creator/MarkWahlberg as Daniel Lugo, Creator/DwayneJohnson as Paul Doyle, and Creator/AnthonyMackie as Adrian Doorbal, and is directed by Creator/MichaelBay.

* OccamsRazor[=/=]HanlonsRazor: The sheer outlandish premise of Kershaw's story leads everyone to assume the more believable scenario, a drunken psychotic episode-- no one could be both that cruel and that inept.

* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Marc Schiller was arrested by federal agents on charges of orchestrating a Medicare billing scheme through his nutritional companies and one of his abductors, Jorge Degaldo, testified against him, though Schiller swears to this day that he is innocent. Victor Kershaw, the character based on Schiller, is depicted as being a fat-shaming bully at worst with no indication he ever defrauded anyone.
* HistoricalVillainDowngrade: The film depicts Adrian Doorbal as a relaxed, even-tempered man who treats his girlfriend, and later wife, Robin with nothing but love and respect, and is appalled when Lugo kills Frank Griga. According to Marc Schiller, the real life Doorbal [[AxCrazy "loved violence"]] and took sadistic glee in torturing him. It was also Doorbal and not Daniel Lugo who killed Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton, and unlike in the film, this appears to not have been an accident; [[CruelAndUnusualDeath he crushed Griga's head with a blunt object strangled him and then finished him off with an injection of horse tranquilizer]]. It was Lugo not Doorbal who tried to pacify Furton with horse tranquilizer to pacify her. Doorbal also allegedly married his girlfriend Cindy Eldridge, on whom Robin is based, to keep her from testifying against him and got involved with a woman who worked in his lawyer's office while he was still married to Eldridge who later filed for divorce so she could testify against him. Doorbal's marriage to Eldridge only lasted four days.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Zig-zagged with Robin Peck who is based on Adrien Doorbal's real-life girlfriend Cindy Eldridge. Eldridge helped Doorbal get rid of the evidence Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton's deaths by scrubbing blood off the floors and was charged as an accessory after the fact. However, she apparently did not know where the blood came from and claims that Doorbal married her to keep her from testifying against him. In the movie, Robin Peck knew nothing of Doorbal's murders either but she did see blood stains left on the floors and the evidence Doorbal threw away into the garbage which she kept quiet about. [[DirtyCoward She testifies against Doorbal even divorcing him before her testimony to acquit herself from neglecting to report what she saw.]]

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Zig-zagged with Robin Peck who is based Adrien Doorbal's real-life girlfriend Cindy Eldridge. Eldridge helped Doorbal get rid of the evidence Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton's deaths by scrubbing blood off the floors and was charged as an accessory after the fact. However, she apparently did not know where the blood came from and claims that Doorbal married her to keep her from testifying against him. In the movie, Robin Peck knew nothing of Doorbal's murders either but she did see blood stains left on the floors and the evidence Doorbal threw away into the garbage which she kept quiet about. [[DirtyCoward She testifies against Doorbal even divorcing him before her testimony to acquit herself from neglecting to report what she saw.]]

* BelievingTheirOwnLies: Danny when trying to scam Griga for his money as an "investment". He gets angry over Griga's TheReasonYouSuckSpeech calling him a lazy, inexperienced businessman (Danny is not a businessman, just a thief and con artist). Danny proceeds to beat Griga to a pulp.

* PsychopathicManchild: Daniel Lugo. He behaves like a little boy and throws tamper tantrums over simply verbal insults such as when he berserkly beat up Frank Griga just for calling him an amateurish unprofessional businessman. In real life, Adrien Doorbal was documented as the most violent and hostile member of the gang rather than Lugo but his film counterpart depicts him as a lot more calm than Daniel.

* AntiVillain: Paul Doyle. He didn't want to be part of the kidnapping at all but was persuaded by Daniel and Adrian into doing so and felt guilty the entire time. [[spoiler:Him actually embracing his guilt and genuinely trying to atone for it saves him from the electric chair, unlike Daniel and Adrian.]]