2 Guns

2 Guns is one of those films that you'll see at the cinema and ten years down the line will have difficulty differentiating it from many similar films of this period. To whit: Mark Wahlberg deadpans and fires a lot of guns; Denzel Washington wears some outlandish clothes; there's a drug deal; corrupt policemen; a hip hop soundtrack, the list goes on. So basically if you like that sort of thing this should see you fine, though the film loses most of its appeal in the fact that it thinks itself far better than it is. Also, if you've seen the trailer already, that has also already given away much of the movie. If you do want some plot what we have is undercover agents (Washington = DEA, Wahlberg = Navy) getting caught up in a botched drug deal, with the hook being that neither man knows of the others identity. The unease is played upon for a little while by director Baltasar Kormakur, but it doesn't hold much water (especially as there's little chemistry between the leads) and at least Kormakur has the sense to eventually just concentrate on the action. This leads into the films main problem in which it tries to be clever with a screenplay that is meant to keep you guessing. However, too many twists spoil the broth and by the end you'll be too tired to care who is who and who gets away. Wahlberg has stuck with his Contraband mucker Kormakur here, but it's the list of directors who were also considered (Liman, Fuqua, Morel, Campbell) that meant we could have had something a bit more coherent as the final presentation. OK, you can take Fuqua back. Rating: 5/10.