Movie Review Jackie K Cooper
"2 Guns" (Universal Pictures)
"2 Guns" is an action movie starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. And if you can't count on those two pros to entertain you, well who can you trust? These are seasoned actors who can take some good dialogue, improvise it a little and have you smiling from ear to ear. Then they can take the heroic action sequences and have you almost believing they can outsmart and outshoot a whole passel of bad guys. For summer popcorn entertainment it can't be beat - even if they don't have superpowers.
Washington plays Bobby Trench, an undercover DEA Agent who is trying to get the goods on Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos), a Mexican drug lord. Working with him is Michael "Stig" Stigman (Wahlberg), a Navy guy also undercover. Neither knows the other is anything other than the small time criminal he professes to be.
In order to bring pressure on Papi they decide to rob the bank where he keeps his funds. They expect to find three million or so but end up taking much, much more than that. Now they have Papi after them, a dirty member of the DEA after them, and the CIA whose money it was after them. In short they are in it deep.
The movie of course sorts this all out while giving Washington and Wahlberg a chance to show their stuff. Washington is the epitome of cool as he wages war against his enemies, romances his DEA co-worker Debi (Paula Patton), and plots how to save the day. Meanwhile Wahlberg is all flip talk, muscular mayhem, and all round good time guy. These two have great chemistry together and their verbal sparring is top of the line.
The one failure of the film is its reliance on plot twist after plot twist. Things spin so fast and so loose that the audience just gives up and accepts whatever falls. This helps move things along but it doesn't add any semblance of realism. You just have to accept the wild fight scenes and the happenings that occur.
It helps that the supporting cast is almost as strong as the leads. Patton is a definite plus as the love interest for Washington plus a little bit more. Olmos is suavely evil as Papi, while James Marsden brings some surprises with him as Wahlberg's superior. Bill Paxton has a great time oozing decadent southern charm as a CIA chief.
The movie is rated R for violence, brief nudity and profanity.
The film is action packed and the plot spins off its wheels but all is fine as long as it is in the capable hands of the dynamic duo of Washington and Wahlberg.
I scored "2 Guns" a shoot-out 7 out of 10.
Jackie K Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com