Baltasar Kormakur’s 2 Guns may as well be billed as the bromantic counter-balance to the Bechdelian The Heat. Save for a floating Y chromosome, the templates for these two summer blockbusters read pretty much the same.
Merely delete options as necessary: ‘A boilerplate, formulaic [vag joke/dick joke]-laden odd-couple buddy-cop action comedy that hinges on the chemistry of its two stars [Sandrissa McBullock/Markzel Washinberg] and is elevated into something [unique/Denzel Washingtony] by the mere presence of [oestregen/Denzel Washington.]’
Washington is on the comedic side of his dual-setting acting abilities, playing a grumpy, largely emotionally inaccessible but irresistibly cool bad-ass. His other serious setting is the same, but with stoic, one-tear man-crying because of ISSUES.
His foil, Mark Wahlberg, is on the Mark Wahlberg side of his Mark Wahlberg-setting. He plays an immature, casually racist, machismo-fuelled cheeky chappy whose flirty winks are supposed to balance his vicious temper. Both undercover agents mistaking the other for a crook, the “unlikely duo” (oh, Hollywood) attract the wrath of the DEA, CIA and a Mexican drug cartel. Car chases, calm struts away from explosions and manly banter ensues.
Contraband director Kormakur understands that his strengths lie in slick action and his leads’ charisma, and indulges both to the Nth degree. He overloads the ultimately ludicrous plot to include the maximum amount of one-liners and exploding helicopters. And for mindless, mildly entertaining mediocrity, it works. Wahlberg and Washington share an often funny, misanthropic repartee. When combined with gratuitous violence and utterly unnecessary close-ups of Paula Patton’s breasts, this will please adolescent boys – of all ages.
Beneath the banter and the bullets there’s too little to justify the film’s overly-complicated plot, and the bigoted jokes and hyperdrive machismo soon feels empty. At least The Heat wore its heart on its sleeve, as well as its punchlines.