Superstar charisma can be as important to a movie as editing, directing or even writing because even if some of the other aspects aren’t quite up to snuff, the presence of two actors just vibing out of control can be so much fun, it can kind of convince you that what you are watching is far better than it actually is. Case in point: the pairing of Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg on comic book action comedy 2 Guns.
With Washington slowly easing into more mature, Liam Neeson-esque action orientated roles (The Equalizer was only about a year away) and Wahlberg still a few years away from becoming one of those guys who constantly premier their movies on Netflix, a breezy, smash-mouth, needlessly complicated crime thriller seems like a natural choice – especially with a stacked cast backing them up. However, strip away the supernatural self confidence of Denzel, the breathy bluster of the artist formally known as Marky Mark and some other input from some legendary character actors, and 2 Guns tends to be a lot more flash and a little less bang.
Think of the two most garrulous, wise cracking, banter trading criminals you could possibly imagine and you’ve probably envisioned Robert “Bobby” Trench and Michael “Stig” Stigman who have built up something of a symbiotic relationship as they do deals with infamous drug lord Manny “Papi” Greco. Now, before we drown in a never-ending stream of zippy nicknames, there’s something important you need to know about Bobby and Stig – firstly, Bobby is actually an undercover DEA special agent who is trying to get Papi to do a deal for cocaine in order to get a bust; secondly, Stig an undercover US Navy SEAL who is hoping to snatch funds from the drug dealer in order for his superiors to use it to fund covert operations; and thirdly, neither of these guys knows that the other is an undercover agent.
After the deal that was supposed to nail Papi to the wall fails to reap the desired results, Stig suggests that they should rob a bank that holds three million dollars of the drug lord’s cash and realising that they could get their target for tax evasion, Bobby agrees – however, after pulling off the heist with a typical amount of snappy banter, something goes weirdly awry.
Instead of nabbing three million of Papi’s money, they mamage to snag over $43 million instead which sets off a string of double crosses that snap into life like a string of bear traps. Firstly, Papi isn’t particularly enthused about losing his money, but much more worrying is the arrival of the cold blooded Earl, a man of seemingly infinite resources and cruelty who tortures everyone even slightly related to the bank job in order to discover who took his money.
With Bobby and Stig finally discovering that they’re both undercover agents in time for virtually everyone they know to try and double cross them, they’re going to have to use all the skills and charisma at their disposal to get out of this alive.
2 Guns is one of those swaggering, super confident action flicks that derives its surprisingly complex plot from the pages of a comic book and feels barely connected to the real world much in the same way Red did. But like Red, whatever pizzazz lurked on the page seemingly evaporates thanks to a transfer to the screen that renders all the large amount of twists, turns and double crosses nothing more than a bit of a mess. In addition to this, the heightened reality of the tone may give its heroes plenty of room to trade as many verbal barbs as they do bullets, but the fact that the script gifts them with a sizable amount of plot armour means that any real tension has long since crossed the border and made a run for it. The final blow to the film is that despite the high stakes involved and all the big personalities flying all over the place, no one here is actually particularly likable, and so we’re doomed to watch everything play out without actually caring one bit about how it’s all going to play out – which, in action thriller terms, sounds nothing short of a disaster.
And yet, despite all this, 2 Guns remains perversely watchable purely thanks to the fact that all the effortless charisma on display gaslights you into believing that what’s happening on screen is actually a lot more fun than what it is. This shouldn’t be particularly surprising considering Denzel Washington is in the house, armed with gold teeth, a wide smile and the sense of self-confidence of a Greek God, but when you match it with Wahlberg’s patented line in overexcited, white boy bluster, the sheer amount of screen presence involved keeps you watching as the two share rat-a-tat exchanges like an old, gun wielding, married couple that keep you locked in even though you don’t really care about anything they’re saying or doing. However, while they go through the standard, buddy movie conventions such as arguing about tipping at restaurants, effortlessly pulling off dangerously impossible feats without getting a scratch and shooting each other in a jovial way, director Baltasar (Everest, Beast) Kormákur makes sure the supporting cast is also eccentric enough to stand out against this sizable charm offensive.
Sure, Paula Patton is reduced to a role that requires her to be a girlfriend, a double crosser, a damsel in distress and someone to avenge; and the film bizarrely wastes James Marsden in a henchman role, but we do get Edward James Olmos as a tyrannical drug baron who tortures people by hanging them upside-down in the path of an enraged bull while he pisses on his own hands to “toughen the skin”. But as nicely outlandish as that is, even better is the apperence of Bill Paxton going full redneck evil for his role as the mysterious Earl and when he isn’t showing a penchant for playing Russian roulette with people’s kneecaps or assuaging the ego of a drug dealer by telling him that he’s in awe of his huge cock, he’s doing the arch villain thing with the actor’s signature sneer in full effect.
Yet, for a film with so much razzle dazzle on paper, 2 Guns frequently fires wild by being incredibly forgettable with numerous action sequences whizzing by without a second thought and when you consider how much the movie attempts to flip the script with betrayals, shock deaths and crazy happenings (at one point the lead duo break onto a navel base for reasons that prove to deliver not much more than a Fred Ward cameo), the fact you’ll struggle to remember any of it, save for an unnecessary flash of Patton’s nipples, is not a good sign.
And yet while 2 Guns fires blanks when it comes to sticking in the memory, the sheer firepower of some of the cast manage to keep the aim steady enough in order to prevent matters pulling the trigger on a completely empty chamber.
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