The buddy cop movie has been around for a long time. Hollywood has tried all sorts of ways to spice it up by adding a gimmick here (Men in Black had aliens) and there (this summer’s The Heat went all female on us), but the core has always stayed the same. It’s an odd couple formula. Pair a wise-cracking, fast-talking loud mouth with a stoic, smooth operator and you’ve got yourself a movie. That’s about the gist of 2 Guns, which works because it follows the basic formula of the genre, but manages to step outside of some perceived boundaries because of the talent involved.
After seeing Mark Wahlberg in the deplorably despicable Pain & Gain earlier this summer I didn’t know if I wanted to see him in another movie again. That movie left such a bad aftertaste that I found it hard to continue liking one of Hollywood’s more likable dudes. 2 Guns puts Wahlberg back exactly where he needs to be. A likable character, cracking jokes with razor-sharp wit and smiling while he does it. Denzel Washington on the other hand has been playing this same character for years. All he needs to do is walk on set with his patented swagger. Cut and print!
Bobby (Washington) and Stig (Wahlberg) are criminal accomplices, only they’re not. They both think the other is a criminal while they’re both playing undercover government agents. Don’t worry, this isn’t any type of spoiler since the trailers and TV spots for 2 Guns make this plot device abundantly clear. So the two of them have been thrust together after they decide to rob a bank that they think is where a drug dealer is stashing some of his funds. Only, they end up finding a lot more money than they expected.
Of course everything boils down to money. It so often does in these types of movies. The theft sets off a chain reaction that causes drug cartels, government agencies, and the military to crash head on into each other trying to recover the stolen dough.
This is one of those movies where every branch of government operates like a clandestine assassin shop. If there are any rules or laws, they don’t care. Bill Paxton arrives as a sweaty, frightening villain who seems to hold more sway than all the other sweaty, frightening villains in this movie. Paxton is another great addition to the cast. Sure his part is completely ridiculous bordering on the bizarre, but so is the movie.
2 Guns works because of its actors. Wahlberg and Washington sell the premise with their quickly traded verbal barbs. The plot itself is as cookie-cutter as they come, however, with Wahlberg and Washington constantly bickering it’s easy to forget about that.
Maybe it’s because the summer of 2013 has been such a mundane overly monotonous time for movies (a whole lot of sameness going around) or maybe it’s because I just enjoyed watching a movie whose budget didn’t appear to be equal to the gross domestic product of some smaller countries. Whatever it was 2 Guns ends up being an enjoyable time at the movies. Does it rewrite the buddy cop movie genre? No. It’s not even close to measuring up to the likes of Lethal Weapon. Yet, with Wahlberg and Washington at the helm it’s hard not to have just a little bit of fun along the way.
