Full disclosure: I will go see anything with Marky Mark, um, I mean Mark Wahlberg in it. Don’t judge. Everybody’s got their something. That doesn’t mean I like everything he’s in (I’m looking at you Broken City). But I did like 2 Guns. Why? Because it’s got Wahlberg with the added bonus of Denzel Washington, and they were really fun together. I enjoyed the banter between the two, which is borderline flirtatious.(Perhaps in the sequel, they’ll actually hook up.) It was silly fun, but it is also violent and the plot is completely convoluted. So it’s not for everyone.
Basically, both of their characters are working undercover in a Mexican drug cartel, but neither knows the other is actually an undercover agent. By the time they figure that out, they’ve both been betrayed by someone in their agencies and they end up going rogue working together to find out who that is. Washington plays Robert “Bobby” Trench an undercover DEA agent, complete with fake gold teeth. Wahlberg plays Michael “Stig” Stigman who’s undercover for Naval Intelligence. They’re both trying to take down Mexican drug lord Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). To do that they rob a bank that’s got three million dollars of his ill-gotten gains in it so they can use it as evidence. But it turns out there’s a lot more money in that bank — forty million more — and that’s when the boys get worried and the plot gets messy. There are double crosses, corrupt government officials galore and a mysterious man so mean on their trail that one character refers to him as “God’s son of a bitch.” (He’s played by Bill Paxton who has some of the movie’s best lines.) It’s all a lot to keep track of, and really, you don’t have to. It doesn’t make much sense anyway. Just sit back and enjoy Mark and Denzel.
So bottom line: if you’re a fan of Mark Wahlberg or Denzel Washington, or both, you’re in the mood for some fun banter, not too worried about a cohesive plot and don’t mind a little gun violence, okay, kind of a lot, then go see it. It’s summertime and the movies aren’t supposed to be thinkers.
I definitely agree with Adventurous Chick on this one. 2 Guns is a mediocre movie that is blessed with an excellent cast. So it’s fairly easy to forgive the film its (numerous) flaws and focus instead on the chemistry between Wahlberg and Washington. Let’s just hope no real chickens were harmed in the making of this movie. (if you see it – you’ll understand).