2 Guns
The year(s) of the Wahlberg continues...
Also up at Channel 24.
What it's about
A DEA agent and a naval officer try and infiltrate a drug cartel by staging a bank robbery and the fact that neither knows the other is working undercover is only the beginning of many, many complications that soon arise.
What we thought
2 Guns is, what, the seventh comic book movie this year? That's right, it may not be about superheroes and it may seem to have far more in common with regular action comedies than anything particularly “comic booky” but it is based on the Steven Grant comics of the same name, published by Boom Studios. Like A History of Violence and Ghost World before it, 2 Guns once again shows what a misnomer “comic book movie” actually is.
And, to be honest, that's probably the only really interesting thing about it. There's nothing in 2 Guns we haven't seen before, because even if the central conceit of the plot is fairly innovative, what transpires after that is the typical mix of wisecracks, gun play and ludicrous plot machinations that is the staple diet of any action comedy worth its salt. It does have a ridiculously complex and twisty plot but even there, there's nothing really that surprising.
All this said though, however derivative and unexceptional the film ultimately end us being, 2 Guns is still a cracking good time when it's playing and should work wonders for fans of this particular genre.
The action scenes are largely quite well handled, though again somewhat unexceptional, and it zooms right along, never stopping long enough to allow the audience to question the increasingly intricate plot points, let alone to become bored with it. It also has a very sharp script that keeps the laughs coming even more relentlessly than the bullets.
And that, right there, is what makes the film such a treat. There is violence, death and tragedy in the film, but that, along with the action scenes, plays second fiddle to the film's beautifully handled comedy that may be the product of a good script but is really brought to life by some seriously cracking performances.
Denzel Washington is at his intense yet easy-going best, while Bill Paxton gets a chance to really chew up the scenery as a sadistically nasty bad guy and, aside for a bland and largely ineffectual turn by Paula Patton (who, to be fair, had very little to work off of), the film also has a very solid supporting cast. The film, however, belongs almost entirely to Mark Whalberg.
Whalberg's character here is almost as dumb as his character in Pain and Gain, but while there he was fairly hateful and entirely unsympathetic, here he plays dumb with an almost puppy-dog level of endearing good-naturedness. Virtually every single thing he says and, for that matter, does in this movie is laugh out loud funny and he is never less than impossibly likeable. Teaming him up with Denzel Washington was the real master-stroke as the two play off one another spectacularly. Indeed, that they are kept apart for so much of the running time is one of the more annoying aspects of the film.
It's not a brilliant movie by any means and it suffers from both too much plot and too little originality but 2 Guns is still a terrifically entertaining couple of hours in the cinema and is worth seeing from Wahlberg and Washington's electrifying comic chemistry alone.
Also up at Channel 24.
A DEA agent and a naval officer try and infiltrate a drug cartel by staging a bank robbery and the fact that neither knows the other is working undercover is only the beginning of many, many complications that soon arise.
What we thought
2 Guns is, what, the seventh comic book movie this year? That's right, it may not be about superheroes and it may seem to have far more in common with regular action comedies than anything particularly “comic booky” but it is based on the Steven Grant comics of the same name, published by Boom Studios. Like A History of Violence and Ghost World before it, 2 Guns once again shows what a misnomer “comic book movie” actually is.
And, to be honest, that's probably the only really interesting thing about it. There's nothing in 2 Guns we haven't seen before, because even if the central conceit of the plot is fairly innovative, what transpires after that is the typical mix of wisecracks, gun play and ludicrous plot machinations that is the staple diet of any action comedy worth its salt. It does have a ridiculously complex and twisty plot but even there, there's nothing really that surprising.
All this said though, however derivative and unexceptional the film ultimately end us being, 2 Guns is still a cracking good time when it's playing and should work wonders for fans of this particular genre.
The action scenes are largely quite well handled, though again somewhat unexceptional, and it zooms right along, never stopping long enough to allow the audience to question the increasingly intricate plot points, let alone to become bored with it. It also has a very sharp script that keeps the laughs coming even more relentlessly than the bullets.
And that, right there, is what makes the film such a treat. There is violence, death and tragedy in the film, but that, along with the action scenes, plays second fiddle to the film's beautifully handled comedy that may be the product of a good script but is really brought to life by some seriously cracking performances.
Denzel Washington is at his intense yet easy-going best, while Bill Paxton gets a chance to really chew up the scenery as a sadistically nasty bad guy and, aside for a bland and largely ineffectual turn by Paula Patton (who, to be fair, had very little to work off of), the film also has a very solid supporting cast. The film, however, belongs almost entirely to Mark Whalberg.
Whalberg's character here is almost as dumb as his character in Pain and Gain, but while there he was fairly hateful and entirely unsympathetic, here he plays dumb with an almost puppy-dog level of endearing good-naturedness. Virtually every single thing he says and, for that matter, does in this movie is laugh out loud funny and he is never less than impossibly likeable. Teaming him up with Denzel Washington was the real master-stroke as the two play off one another spectacularly. Indeed, that they are kept apart for so much of the running time is one of the more annoying aspects of the film.
It's not a brilliant movie by any means and it suffers from both too much plot and too little originality but 2 Guns is still a terrifically entertaining couple of hours in the cinema and is worth seeing from Wahlberg and Washington's electrifying comic chemistry alone.
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