I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree that he's a hack because a hack by definition means someone without talent or skill and the man clearly has talent and skill when it comes to the technical aspects of filmmaking. You can't love film or be a student of it and deny him that. He's not Uwe Boll who is in fact, a hack. The problem with Bay is that he doesn't care about the other things you need to make a good movie: good story, compelling characters, good script, good acting and good pacing. Bad Boys works because it's a smaller movie, same with Pain and Gain and The Rock to a degree. Once he goes outside of that and aims to make these bigger than big movies, that's when his weaknesses show up and I'd argue that those same weaknesses are in Bad Boys and The Rock but you can deal with them because they're not as glaring..but then you get to Bad Boys 2 and that's a whole different argument. The other thing is, he doesn't give a shyt because his films are successful. Similar to the thing I said in my review of Barton Fink, Bay is making movies for the common man and knows how to speak directly to the common man, and not to say we are above the common man because none of us are and we all fit the bill of the common man every now and then but when it comes to "film" most of us are not the common man. We go into a flick ready to enjoy it first and then analyze it second whereas most people just go to enjoy and that's who Bay speaks to. If you don't know that by now then I don't know what to tell you. When a movie comes out with his name attached as a director, you know what you're getting or at least you should at this point. I'm not a fan but I don't knock those who are or knock him for doing what he does..shyt just ain't for me