2GUNS  2.75 ***

       Every movie poster and preview for this movie prominently shows off Denzel Washington and  Mark Wahlberg, and practically nothing else. And it's an accurate description of the movie - the two stars carry the entire film from start to end. And that's not really a bad thing...the two of them work very well together. They seem to gel naturally and have fun together, almost to the point where you wonder if some of the script is being ad-libbed by them. You really don’t need much of anything else - just give these two stars enough bodies to shoot at and enough screen time to talk in between the shooting.  

The story itself is all over the place. The action begins with smoothie Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and fast-talker Stig Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) starting a grease fire in a diner as a diversion and then robbing a rural Texas bank across the street that contains $43 million hidden in the safety deposit boxes. It turns out neither bank robber is a bad guy and neither knew the other was also a government undercover operative, Denzel with the DEA and Wahlberg with Naval intelligence. Both agents were on a covert mission to infiltrate the powerful Mexican drug cartel headed by Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos), a mission they botched. In the ensuing chase for the money that is lost  everything goes wrong for our boys including that they are hunted by the DEA, Naval intelligence, the CIA and the Mexican drug cartel. The boys have to re-connect with each other after separating and must now learn to trust each other, as they've both been double-crossed by people they trusted and are in danger of losing their lives.

The movie isn't believable for a second, but is always entertaining, slick and well-acted.  It's a playful buddy flick, in the mode of the Lethal weapon duo of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and its anti-hero heroes are amoral and its villains are scoundrels of the lowest order. It's that kind of a fun but unremarkable thriller.

The violence, some brief nudity and adult language give the movie its R rating, which is equally refreshing. It's nice to see a movie that isn't aimed for the whole family and one that doesn't rely on CGI for every scene. A movie where actual actors take center stage is becoming increasingly rare in superhero obsessed Hollywood these days. The movie almost feels old fashioned and I mean that as a compliment.

 

Clark