2 Guns

Year: 2013
Director: Baltasar Kormakur
Cast: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Edward James Olmos, Bill Paxton, James Marsden


Plot: Two undercover agents from different departments are forced to team up after their plan to rob money from a Mexican drug lord goes wrong.


Review: 2 Guns is a nice attempt at recapturing the old buddy cop genre that has been absent or rarely visited, or successfully done in the last few years.

The story focuses on Bobby and Stig, two friends who each don't know the other is an undercover agent (Bobby is from the DEA, Stig is from Naval Intelligence). They both decide to rob a bank that holds drug lord Papi Greco's money, only to realise that not only is there more money in there than they thought, the dough belongs to a ruthless CIA agent who wants the money back. With their identities blown and unable to seek help from their superiors, they have to work together to get themselves out of this mess.

Baltasar Kormakur, who directed Wahlberg in Contraband, does a good job keeping the film moving at a brisk pace. When there's no action, the witty script by Blake Masters keeps the audience entertained, so there's no dull moment at all here. Bobby and Stig get the lion's share of the awesome one-liners (as expected) as they argue, bitch and insult each other and the bad guys throughout the film, and it never gets old.

Washington as usual plays Mr Cool here in the role of Bobby, with more swagger than seriousness this time. He has great chemistry with Wahlberg, who plays the foul mouthed but extremely funny Stig. I never would have thought that these two would make a great team, but they do. Paula Patton is mere eye candy here as Bobby's love interest, but she is very, very good eye candy. Bill Paxton hams it up as the CIA agent they're up against, while James Marsden is sadly underused as Stig's double crossing superior. Edward James Olmos however is great as Papi, who thankfully doesn't play him the same way most drug lords are portrayed in the movies. 

The main drawback here is the over complicated plot, which took one turn too many, and the longer the film went, the more it didn't matter. The action sequences are not much to shout about too, but they're decent enough, it's just that you've seen better ones elsewhere.

However, 2 Guns is solid entertainment for a little under two hours. I sure had a blast with it. (3.5/5)