Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg take a break in action buddy comedy 2 GUNS
2 GUNS (Baltasar Kormákur, 2013)
Opens Friday, August 2
www.2guns.net
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are fun to watch in the action comedy flick 2 Guns, but unfortunately the ever-twisting plot is so overloaded with gaping holes that the film ends up shooting nothing but blanks. Washington stars as Bobby Trench, a DEA agent working deep undercover to capture a big-time Mexican drug warlord. Little does he know that the “partner” he recruited, Marcus Stigman, is actually a Navy SEAL who is undercover as well, thinking that he is the one playing Bobby and not the other way around. When the two men rob the cleverly named Tres Cruces (Three Crosses) bank, they suddenly find themselves with a whole lot more money than expected and realize they were both set up by their superiors and colleagues, not knowing anymore who they can trust among a cast of characters that includes DEA agent Jessup (Robert John Burke), Navy lt. commander Quince (James Marsden), and drug kingpin Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). And entering the fray is the nasty, mysterious Earl (Bill Paxton), who is ready to do whatever’s necessary to get back what he claims is his stash, taking delight in his own brand of Russian roulette as a torture method. But things get more and more ridiculous as double crosses turn into triple crosses and quadruple crosses and the conspiracy keeps reaching higher and higher, with writer Blake Masters (Brotherhood) and director Baltasar Kormákur (Jar City, Contraband with Wahlberg) trying to channel such genre classics as John Dahl’s Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, and Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon, but 2 Guns, which is based on Steven Grant’s comic-book series, turns out to be a disappointing retread that is far too (undeservedly) pleased with itself. Grant and Boom! Studios have just published a sequel, 3 Guns; here’s hoping that if they turn that into a movie as well, the filmmakers concentrate more on the cool main characters than the increasingly stupid, overblown set pieces that ruin what could have, and should have, been a much better summer blockbuster.