Undercover and Underwhelming
Operating on autopilot, Washington is so smooth that you don’t initially realize just how disengaged he is here. However, much like Bobby refuses to call a fellow DEA agent (Paula Patton) his girlfriend — he just likes to have her around for topless post-coital chats — Washington hasn’t much interest in committing to, much less elevating, the middling material he’s handed here. Unfortunately, Wahlberg takes this opportunity to check his work ethic at the door and join his co-star in swaggering, winking and nudging his way through most scenes. That aforementioned bank job — which earns some style points for its use of unnecessarily detailed latex masks — kicks the plot into gear and sics a handful of adversaries on our heroes. Bill Paxton is a crooked CIA agent who apparently fancies himself to be “God’s son of a bitch” but proves too wooden to pull off the supposedly unhinged sadist that’s been penned for him. Meanwhile, Cruising around in a vintage Dodge Challenger, a huffy James Marsden looks like he’s in a snit that the DEA’s Bobby (Denzel Washington) and Navy’s Stig screenwriter Blake Masters didn’t even bother giving (Wahlberg again) make for such convincing badasses him a chance to squander any oddball traits as a corrupt that they even have each other fooled. Indeed, the hook Navy officer. here is that, having been assigned by their Such a lack of invention plagues much 2 GUNS respective agencies to infiltrate a crime of 2 Guns, with its dearth of clever ideas Rated R syndicate, each assumes that that other is epitomized by someone’s decision to stow Directed by Baltasar Kormákur a criminal. It’s only once they’ve robbed a millions of dollars under a mattress. (It’s Starring Denzel Washington, bank together (in order to secure evidence, an unfortunate reminder that Contraband’s Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton naturally) that they realize each other’s lamebrained master plan involved shoving actual allegiances. illicit materials into a hole in a wall.) As In the early going, 2 Guns mostly subsists on its the implausibilities mount, the excitement level is slow scripted-within-an-inch-of-its-life banter. As Bobby and to follow suit. After backing itself into a corner, KorStig bicker over breakfast options and debate appropriate mákur’s film has no other option than to try and shoot gratuities, you’ll be excused if you find yourself thinking its way out. And as Washington and Wahlberg open fire of post-Pulp Fiction fare such as Things to Do In Denver When while being literally showered in cash, Kormákur finally You’re Dead (likely for the first time since its end credits stumbles across something that sticks: a single image that rolled back in the mid-’90s). Alas, none of the rapid-fire captures both the idiocy and excess that fuels the majordialogue found here is notable, much less quotable. ity of Hollywood’s current action flicks. n
Washington and Wahlberg don’t bring much to 2 Guns By Curtis Woloschuk
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sGuns initially resembles one of those complex logic puzzles from school: “If an undercover DEA agent and undercover naval intelligence officer both try to infiltrate the same Mexican cartel, how long will it take for each of them to realize that the other is not who they appear to be?” However, as it grows increasingly preposterous, it becomes apparent that Baltasar Kormákur’s latest Hollywood effort is simply another one of those action flicks in which logic is the first casualty. In reworking 101 Reykjavík, his Icelandic debut, for last year’s Contraband, Kormákur attempted to balance all the tough-guy posturing with some relatable concerns by having the misdeeds of Mark Wahlberg’s smuggler motivated by his intense devotion to his family. There are no such efforts made to ground the material here. Having apparently sated his interest in genuine characters with the small-scale survival drama The Deep, Kormákur is now content to deliver a mindless shoot-’em-up populated by action figures and cartoonish baddies.
44 INLANDER AUGUST 1, 2013