2 Guns
Three stars (out of four)
Rated: 14A
The opening shot features a train barrelling down the track towards you, the audience.
It’s an apt metaphor for the film that follows — big, noisy and fast — and if you enjoy train trips (and action movies), you’re almost certainly going to like 2 Guns.
Oh yeah, and the train stays on the tracks, much like the film, which gets us from point A to point B in a journey that, while predictable, is a breezily pleasant ride.
Credit here is largely due to the casting of two appealing actors in the lead roles, Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. They play two reluctant partners thrown together when a bank heist goes awry and they have to figure out exactly what the heck is going on.
The chemistry works between the two, with Washington playing Bobby “Beans” Trench and Wahlberg his partner, Marcus “Stig” Stigman.
Both are working undercover to bring down a Mexican drug kingpin, though neither knows the other isn’t who he says he is.
Trench has a penchant for porkpie hats and uses a couple of fake gold-capped teeth to bolster his gangsta image.
Stigman likes to chew gum and has a habit of winking at people, usually women, which Trench finds rather annoying.
As the story opens, the two are sitting at a diner, a popular hangout for the local fuzz, and planning to rip off the nearby Tres Cruces Savings and Loan.
“Never rob a bank across from a diner with the best doughnuts in three counties,” Trench sagely observes. So they torch the place, only to return a week later to knock over the bank.
That’s when things get hairy, because the $3 million or so in drug money they’re expecting to find is actually about 10 times that amount and the people they thought they could trust are not exactly playing things straight.
A mayhem-filled road trip ensues and a bevy of villains emerges, including a corrupt navy officer named Quince (played by James Marsden), drug czar Papi Greco (played by Edward James Olmos) and a twitchingly sadistic CIA operative named Earl (played with edgy verve by Bill Paxton). There’s also a DEA agent love interest of Trench’s named Deb (played by Paula Patton).
While the secondary actors all acquit themselves well, it is the interplay between Trench and Stigman that occupies most of the screen time, and our attention. Both actors have previously demonstrated their charisma and presence onscreen, so it isn’t a huge surprise that we like them both, even as they squabble with each other on their way to becoming an effective team.
The screenplay by Blake Masters — based on the graphic novels of Boom! Studios’ Steven Grant — is perhaps a bit too murky and complicated. But this is a minor consideration.
Iceland-born director Baltasar Kormakur demonstrates he’s got the chops to play in the big-time Hollywood league, both in assembling a very capable cast and in overseeing an enjoyable buddy cop action film with some interesting visuals and the odd surprise tossed in.
The studios, Universal Pictures and TriStar Pictures, have spared little expense in promoting the film, hoping to ensure 2 Guns succeeds where other recent summer blockbusters have failed. Their efforts are likely to be rewarded.
Bruce DeMara is a syndicated Toronto Star movie critic.