In what was a summer of the “action crime comedy”, “2 Guns” pulled-off this genre better than some (“R.I.P.D”, “The Heat”) and not as good as others (“Red 2”, “White House Down”). But even though it features two big stars, “2 Guns” is unnecessarily too complex, and ends-up being too ridiculous for its own good.
On paper Denzel Washington (Bobby) and Mark Wahlberg (Stig) make a great buddy-film team. And they spend much of the movie throwing wisecracks back and forth with ease (many of the scenes, apparently, were ad-libbed). At the beginning of “2 Guns” the pair is planning a bank robbery from a diner across the street. They later blow-up the diner (I still haven’t figured out why) and then we flash back a
week (but for only about 10 minutes) and then witness the exact same scene, just at a faster
pace. Didn’t get it then – still don’t now.
The two do rob the bank, but it ends-up having a lot more money in it than was expected and they take all the money with them. This gets them into trouble with the people whose money it is – and they come after the pair – who, we find-out, aren’t really bank robbers after all. Soon the Mexican mob, the DEA, the CIA and even the Navy get involved – and both lives of these characters, and the movie itself, become a tangled mess.
Along the way we get a severed head in a bowling bag, brutal shootings, plenty of chases and explosions and a whole lot of blood. “2 Guns” is another example of a film that isn’t able to balance its violence with its attempts at humor.
The supporting cast includes Paula Patton (“Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”), whose melodramatic performance is completely out of place. James Marsden is a Navy officer who helps Stig, then he doesn’t, then he does again, and then he simply goes after the money. And Bill Paxton plays a psychopathic CIA agent who would have seemed more at home in a Tarantino film.
The action scenes in “2 Guns” are solid, but by the end, and without giving too much away, characters start getting killed-off left and right. It’s almost as if director Baltasar Kormakur (who also directed Wahlberg in last year’s “Contraband”) and screenwriter Blake Masters (this is his first film screenplay and it’s based on graphic novels written by Steven Grant) didn’t know what to do after the potentially interesting initial setup.
“2 Guns” is rated R for violence, language and nudity. It’s appropriate for mid-teens and up. Washington and Wahlberg hold the film together, but they deserve better material. This is Wahlberg’s third straight disappointment (following “Broken City and “Pain and Gain”) and a major step-down from Washington’s previous Oscar-nominated effort in “Flight”.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “2 Guns” gets a C.
By the way, before seeing this movie I’d never heard the phrase: “Never rob a bank that’s across the street from the diner with the best donuts in three counties”, and I hope I never hear it again.