Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Starring: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton
Robert “Bobby” Trench (Denzel Washington) and Michael “Stig” Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) are currently working on a huge cocaine deal with Mexican drug cartel kingpin Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). Trench has been working 3 years on this deal while Stigman only joined the last 8 months of the deal. Two people that are working together for such a long period of time, they’re both unaware of one secret – they are both working under cover. Trench is working for the DEA and Stigman is an off the books Naval Intelligence worker. It’s Trench’s job to ping Papi Greco to the drugs and end his reign as a cartel king pin but Stigman’s job is more complicated than that. Stigman is currently listed as AWOL for shooting a MP and to get back into the Navy he has to break into Papi Greco’s safety deposit box in a bank in Tres Cruces which holds 3 million dollars and bring back the money to his commanding officer Quince (James Marsden).
The duo manages to get in and out of the bank with ease and drives off to a dessert to decide what they’re going to do with the money. As soon as they get out of the car they immediately pull out their guns to double cross each other but Stig manages to get his gun out and shoots down Trench; in an area in which he wouldn’t die which was going against his direct orders. Stig takes off with the money and heads off to get his position in the Navy back – at least that’s what he believes. Stig is then double crossed by Quince and a group of soldiers as they try to execute Stig and is forced to go on the run.
To Stig and Trench’s surprise, the money they stole from Greco from did not belong to him but to CIA agent Earl (Bill Paxton) and it was more than just a mere $3 million but a whopping $42 million. Going off some leads Earl finds out Trench was involved in the stealing of his money and frames the murder Trench’s boss Jessup (Robert John Burke) on him and in order to avoid going to jail for the crime he must return the money. With the help of his fellow agent and sometime lover Debbie (Paula Patton), Trench learns of Stig’s connection to the Navy and re-teams with him in order to put an end to all this.
2 Guns is a comedic action based movie which gives movie goers a nice break from all the big budgeted films we were given this summer. It was not too epic – like citywide destruction but was enough for you to enjoy the action that was given. Director Baltasar Kormákur was given two gold mines when Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg were casted to star in this film and he took complete advantage of that. The chemistry between the two was amazing and is the true highlight of the film (besides getting to see Paula Patton topless) and saves what would’ve been a mediocre picture.
As for the casting of the three parties after the cash was stolen (Bill Paxton, James Marsden and Edward James Olmos), I felt only two of the three were rightly casted with the one misplace being James Marsden’s character. Besides the fact we were never really given a reason why the Navy needed to steal $42 million, he just never gave that bad guy vibe.
2 Guns will have you laughing at times and entertain you with its action but I recommend you wait until the movie comes out on DVD or for it to hit Netflix even though both actors did their thing.
What The Delio?: 7.5/10
Factoid: 2 Guns is based off a comic with the same name and the sequel to the comic book, 3 Guns, is set to be released soon. So lets see if we will also get a sequel for the movie.