2 Guns

2 Guns, the latest film by director Baltasar Kormakur is one hell of a pleasant surprise. It's witty, nicely paced, and surprisingly well acted. My thoughts going in were that I was probably going to really hate this movie. Since my thoughts on the way out were nothing similar to the ones I had on the way in, I give 2 Guns two and a half buckets of Killer Korn, which is astonishing, really!












I hate Mark Wahlberg, there, I said it. I mean, I don't hate him personally, I don't know him like that. What I hate is his acting abilities of which he has none. If acting were akin to driving school, he would never get his license. I'm also no fan of Baltasar Kormakur's directing, yep, I said that too. Baltasar's last American film was the very forgettable Contraband which starred, ironically enough Mr. No License Having Mark Wahlberg. I felt Mark and Baltasar stole money from me when I walked out of that film when it was over, and I vowed there was no way those two talent-less miscreants were getting another dime out of me. What I found interesting was the fact that these two guys lured Denzel Washington to be in this movie. Make no mistake, Denzel was not the reason I saw this film either. I'm no real big fan of Mr. Washington either. He's the same guy in everyone of his films. Remember that guy he played in Safe House, the one with the really cool movie name of Tobin Frost? Same guy here, I swear on my popcorn.

The reason I saw 2 Guns was because a friend suggested it, they said it was really funny. Now I do not equate Denzel and Mark with funny so I found that odd. I had some time on my hands so I bit the bullet and went to check Guns out and wouldn't you know it, my friend was right. 2 Guns isn't really funny as much as it is humorous. It's chock full of witty and snappy dialogue between Denzel's character Bobby Trench and Mark's Michael Stigman. The two play off each other like brothers, Denzel being the older annoyed brother who's tasked with letting his little brother tag along with him. Their relationshop doesn't seem forced or contrived and while there is no showing how these two men teamed up, they choose to rob a specific bank in order to capture Edward James Olmos' character drug cartel leader Papi Greco. Papi cut the head off of a guy that both Bobby and Stig liked and they wanted to steal his money to flush him out. They planned on making off with three million dollars, instead they stole forty three million, and then things got really interesting after that.

Bill Paxton plays it up as Earl, the ruthless CIA agent looking for the money, Paula Patton, in her second film with Denzel, Deja Vu was their first, plays DEA Agent Deb, and James Marsden plays Naval Intelligence officer Quince. All of these characters play against one another as they scheme, backstab, and double cross each other in the last act of the film. During the first act you have Bobby and Stig going at each other with some nicely, humorous, and well paced rat-a-tat-tat dialogue. There's some impressive shooting of chicken heads, interesting conversations about not having "people", and all this includes an interesting array of hats. The screenplay, a first by Blake Masters, he's usually a teleplay writer kept reminding me of someone else's writing. The dialogue and interplay of words between the characters was just so familiar that even though I sort of knew what was coming dialogue wise, I still smiled. Then I realized who the dialogue reminded me off, there was an Elmore Leonard feel to it, but it reminded me of mine. Much of this movie sounds like something I would have written dialogue wise.

At the end of 2 Guns comes the cliched big showdown between Papi Greco's cartel, Naval Intelligence, the DEA, and the CIA with Bobby and Stig caught right in the middle of it. Predictable and done a million times over, you forgive Baltasar though because the movie leading up to the showdown is quality. With a funky score by the versatile Clinton Shorter that was reminiscent of early David Holmes (back when he was good), the music is the perfect fit. It's gritty, hard, and melodic all at the same time. The look of the film provided by cinematographer Oliver Wood hearkens back to those old Sam Peckinpah gangster westerns. There's a slight washed out look to the film which made perfect sense given the films supposed locations of the south west. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by this film and wouldn't be surprised if there was a sequel in the works, but for the record, I'm still not a fan of Mark Wahlberg or of  Baltasar Kormakur, but they get a pass...for now. Check out 2 Guns and I'll see you at the theater.