“Pain & Gain” is a gang-that-can’t-shoot-straight comedy based on a series of real and very serious crimes committed by a trio of vicious thugs in Miami in the mid 1990s. Making light of torture, kidnapping and murder is no small feat but Michael Bay is notorious for torturing film audiences with his atrocities like The Transformers franchise and remakes of films that need no remaking. So, it is tacky, crude, tasteless, crass, gross, cruel and a bit too long to boot, but when all is written and said, it is an amusing waste of time, just don’t admit it to yourself or to anyone you know.

While wasting an early evening watching “Pain & Gain”, I kept thinking how con men, losers and self-help charlatans can cause so much damage to society because they all have so much in common: a belief in something can come without a real education and hard work.

Three gym rats, who made very poor life choices, dream of the sleazy-easy life in Miami. The catalyst of these mutts is Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) who had already served time for bilking seniors on get-rich schemes. He slimed his way into managing a gym by speaking all that business-speak-malarkey that pollutes Talk Radio commercials. When his hype-blather does not match his promises he decides to go after one of his rich, but exceedingly annoying, clients played by Tony Shalhoub. Lugo recruits Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie). The three morons try umpteen times to kidnap their target and fail; when they do succeed, they torture him to sign over his money, and then, try and fail, umpteen times, to kill him.

When that money runs out, the three decide to do the same thing with a Miami pornographer and his wife. Things go terribly wrong and they become merciless murderers. Ideal material for belly laughs, right? Well, it isn’t as inhumane as watching the three Transformers movies.

My cinema chaperone noticed a little clever touch in the film that is worth noting; when Mr. Wahberg’s character strips down to his Calvin Klein’s to dismember his victims, he pays tribute to his own resume when he was Marky Mark. At her age, she should avert her eyes when tightie-whities prance about the big screen, but who can get her mind out of the name brand gutter?

Despite the shameful comic treatment of the horrible crimes, the four main principals are great fun, especially Dwayne Johnson. You got to love the guy’s portrayal of his lug. While the four aforementioned display their comic chops, Ed Harris (playing a retired cop turned private detective), brings in some serious gravitas. The tone noticeably changes and the adult enters the film.

This film will be loved and hated by critics and filmgoers alike. It is too much of a moral mess to sort out in our ethical filing system. Mr. Bay made the victims so deplorable that we almost feel pity for the perpetrators of the crime. Mr. Bay should have taken us through this journey and snap us back to reality at the end to make a point worth making. We almost saw it— just for a second— with Mr. Shalhoub’s character there at the bank in the Bahamas, but Mr. Bay botched it.

I think that is the bottom line on “Pain & Gain”: short-term gain, long term pain. You may laugh when you see it, but you will feel guilty afterwards. In other words, you can look buff by injecting and pumping, but oh those side effects…they sure come with a vengeance and you soon end up limp and lumpy.

Despite its sins, “Pain & Gain” earns three out of five bow ties.