2 Guns (Movie Review)

The best thing, worst thing, and main thing about Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg's new action flick "2 Guns" in about the time it takes to watch the trailer.

 

REVIEW TEXT

 Will we ever tire of the “Buddy cop” movies? Not as long as we get the right buddies.
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“2 Guns” stars Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as unknowing undercover agents who can’t seem to figure out if they are supposed to be investigating each other or working together, and what happens when their world starts to fall apart. OK, Right off the bat, wow, are Washington and Wahlberg good together. I’m thinking I must be a sucker for a good buddy cop movie pairing, cause I remember saying so many of these same things about McCarthy and Bullock in “The Heat”, but man who would have guessed that these two guys would play so well off of each other.
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You know what it is? And I’ll go ahead and call this my best thing about the movie, it’s the charisma. Both of these actors just have that certain something that you look at the screen and just want to watch everything they do and then put them together and it’s magic. When they are trading lines and barbs the movie locks into this incredible energy, it just pulses from the screen. Amazingly enough, if I had to pick one of them over the other, I think I’d take Wahlberg in this. The way he plays this character as full of confidence, humor, and knowing naivete is really kinda brilliant. Even though the story itself is kind of basic and well worn. with these two guys taking us through it, it never feels dull or slow. In addition, I also thought some of the way the plot machinations were presented in 2 guns was just different enough to catch my attention and give it some extra life as well.
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The wonderful repartee of Washberg aside or should it be Wahlington? Markzel? Whatever, point being, even as much as they clicked there are still some things about this movie that didn’t quite jive for me. Primarily, and I’ll call it the worst thing, it’s really quite shallow. There isn’t a lot of meat underneath here. I don’t necessarily need every movie to be a steak dinner, but I would like something more than an empty plate. Part of that may be due to the violence that peppers the film. I hear the word “gratuitous” thrown around a lot for movies, but here it feels apropos. So much of the graphic bloodshed and gunplay seemed completely unnecessary and added to the feeling of pointlessness underneath the endeavor. I also wasn’t sold on Bill Paxton’s acting choices in his performance which often felt like too much scenery chewing and too little truth.
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But, at the end of the day, even those things didn’t keep me from being extremely entertained by “2 Guns”. For Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg’s chemistry alone this movie easily deserves its B.
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