Guns. Girls. Explosions. Look, I like dumb action movies. I like not having to think about plot points. I like heroes who say clever stuff during car chases, and bad guys that randomly kill their own henchmen just to prove how evil they are. I like these things, but I just don’t like them enough. And neither, it seems does director Baltasar Kormakur.
2 Guns has plenty of the aforementioned fun, but feels too much like it’s coasting on the charisma of stars Denzel Washington doing his usual emotional tough guy thing and Mark Wahlberg as the hyper puppy dog man-boy we’ve seen him do since ‘Good Vibrations’ dropped. As two undercover cops who don’t know the other’s identity, the guys become friends, then enemies, then reluctant partners in bringing down some bad guys. Or something.
The two play a riff on the classic buddy cop formula of Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop and then some. Only instead of the by the books one and the loose cannon, both Washington and Wahlberg’s cops are set as rogue trigger-happy oddballs. That part keeps some interest with its meta twist on the standard action fare in a “What if it was Riggs and Riggs?” kind of way, but even a dumb movie needs a plot, right?
So what is the plot? I don’t know, man. Cops, bank robberies, explosions and a sex scene or two. There’s lots of double crossing. And Bill Paxton is pretty badass with a Southern accent. Look, who goes to action movies for the story anyway? The trailer shows Washington saying “Make it rain”, before blowing up a car filled with $43 million. That kind of sums up both the plot and what I imagine the production must have felt like. It’s fun, cool to look at, but ultimately a waste of money.
2.5/5 stars
BY CAMERON JAMES
2 Guns is in cinemas now.
