2 Guns
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are great company. You’d want to have a beer with them, trade war stories and laugh your ass off. But that’s a fantasy. The only way you get to hang with these two big guns is to see 2 Guns, and it’s not a fair trade-off. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur, who worked with Wahlberg on 2012’s Contraband, knows how to move action along. He’s so good at it that you believe the tired old B-movie plot might actually spring to life and relevance. No such luck. What can I say about the story? That Washington’s Bobby Trench and Wahlberg’s Stig Stigman rob banks together. I could say that, but it wouldn’t be true exactly. And if I say any more I’ll be pilloried for being a spoiler sport. So I’ll say this: the supporting cast, especially Bill Paxton and Edward James Olmos as baddies, comes up aces. So does Oliver Wood’s sleek cinematography. But you can’t tell me a B-movie can’t be exciting and smart. Why? Because Washington and Ethan Hawke proved it could be Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day. Washington has a nice, noirish line to his romantic interest, a cop played sexily by Paula Patton: “I really meant to love you.” Hell, I really meant to at least like 2 Guns. But I couldn’t. The movie just didn’t make the extra effort.