Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

2 Guns – 2013

Director Baltasar Kormákur
Starring Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, Fred Ward, James Marsden, Edward James Olmos, Robert John Burke
Screenplay Blake Masters based on the book by Steven Grant

There is a lot of star power in this film.  Personality just jumps off the screen at every turn.  We have Wahlberg somewhere between the knowing novice of his early films (Boogie Nights and the underrated Traveller) and the humorless quick study of his later work (The Italian Job, Contraband and Broken City).  Denzel, well, he’s Denzel.  There is not any real variance in his performances, but the subtleties are like no others.  One can always find time for Paula Patton.  Edward James Olmos is not in nearly enough.  He should work 24/7.  Paxton had me at “We just got our assess kicked, Pal!”

Even with all of this, 2 Guns is just so so.  That two undercover operatives from 2 different organizations can get so deep without figuring each other out is a stretch. Then they steal 43 million from another organization?  Suspension of disbelief can only be pushed so far.  Then there is the deception.  Everyone is double-crossing everyone, and somehow the ones they are deceiving get together to double cross our heroes.  It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World of guns and money.

It’s an entertaining film.  It’s not really memorable.  That one can be a fan of the two principal actors and still be nonplussed should tell you something.  Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Toshiro Mifune made films like this and no one thinks any less of their careers in retrospect.  You probably won’t regret seeing it.  You probably won’t remember it after.

(*** out of *****)