2 Guns

★★

Dir: Baltasar Kormákur

(2013)

This fairly straight buddy film is both brainless and fun in equal measure with Denzel Washington and Mark Walberg using their very different acting styles, against the odds, to make a pretty watchable duo. Icelandic action director Baltasar Kormákur made a pal in Walberg in last year's Contraband but 2 Guns is much lighter in weight, often straying into Lethal Weapon territory; The ludicrous story and over slick action may get some critics backs up but this is a watchable piece of popcorn cinema.

A couple of crooks (Washington and Walberg) meet in a diner to plan a bank robbery; The immediate bickering and chutzpah is the stuff of 80's action films and it pangs a little to begin with but, after the fact, 2 Guns admirably but clumsily tries to wriggle out of its own cliché and heads straight into another; You see, Washington is a DEA agent and Walberg, a naval intelligence officer; Both men oblivious to the fact they are both trying to bring down the same drug cartel headed up by none other than Edward James Olmos and a shady money laundering scheme led by a CIA agent (Bill Paxton).

Kormákur does well but the action never quite reaches fever pitch and the script just isn't good enough to let this Michael Bay looking film rest on the back and forth between its talented leads. The pacing of the action scenes and some unnecessary pissing contests ultimately get in the way but, both Washington and Walberg do well and there are more laughs than expected; This is one for genre fans and multiplex goers only who are undoubtably used to checking their brains in at the door by now; Do that and you may enjoy 2 Guns.