2 Guns

2 Guns

Box office pleading at Universal Pictures has reached unprecedented heights with “2 Guns”: The desired opening weekend gross is actually embedded in the script itself. For a budget of about $80 million, “2 Guns” programs your subconscious mind with slightly over half that amount, leading you to tell everyone you know to throw away their ticket money. It might sound unbelievable until the number of times one hears the supposed target number ($43.125 million) is counted. Say it with me: “Forty three point one two five million dollars.”

This phrase has marvelously memorable clumsiness. It drives the plot and character as well as being spoken around 43.125 million times. Each of the main casts has different opportunities to include his or her own spin on this statement too. Bill Paxton seems to have the most fun with those moments; hear him speak this slowly like Hemingway’s sentence sample.

If there is anything you can recall from 2 Guns, it would be the exact sum that gets most of its characters killed off; thus if all these disgusting actions are as worthless as they seem then both directors and actors should engage in other serious careers rather than wasting their time on such movies. An enormous, gasp-inducing pile of cash appears on screen. From above Kormákur and Wood always film it, often putting someone else in frame for visual opposition. No less than 43.125 million rap videos set in strip clubs could match the fetishistic glee with which this money is presented here, especially in the climactic scene.

Everyone’s corrupted by money in ‘2 Guns’ including drug kingpin Bobby (Denzel Washington), cop Stig (Mark Wahlberg), DEA Agent Quince (James Marsden), Naval officer Jessup (Robert John Burke), CIA Agent Earl (Bill Paxton) who happen to be some other main characters involved.

There are many double-crosses starting from those of our protagonists Bobby (Denzel Washington) and Stig (Mark Wahlberg). They are planning to rob a bank across from a diner with “the best donuts in 3 counties.” And both of them are on the right side of the law Bobby’s DEA and Stig is with the Navy. The duo, who have been working together for over two years, plan to frame each other as they attempt to capture drug lord Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). According to rumors, this particular bank has drug money belonging to Greco in its safe deposit boxes.

The film was long enough that I could not figure out what exactly was on Bobby and Stig’s minds. Their identities are revealed straight away in commercials and trailers. After the robbery, when it turns out there is much more money than they expected, Stig shoots Bobby upon disclosing his true identity. This loyalty from naval officer Quince (James Marsden), who kills his subordinate officer Jessup (Robert John Burke), is how he repays him. This and other familiar plot devices lead us back to a teaming up of Bobby and Stig once again ending in mucho macho mayhem.

Neither does sometimes quickly give up the $43.125 million that has been mentioned all through the trailer belong to Papi Greco. They possess this sum instead according to Earl (Bill Paxton), a southerner version of Anton Chigurh or Chang from “Only God Forgives”. Asking everyone he meets about this cash beginning with an unlucky manager of one robbed bank earl does. Earl tortures and brutally murders anyone who refuses to give him an answer. Clearly enjoying himself at sadism, Paxton brings an intense deep derision into it which makes every appearance by him seem uneasy one as well.

Deb, played by Paula Patton and who is an on-again-off-again DEA agent love interest to Bobby, also goes for a ride in the film. It was already expected; you get to see it all except some parts of the movie that were described in MPAA rating. She also adds weight to the story by having a good rapport with her “John Q” co-star. For sure she later becomes an important part of this development process, although this film remains male dominated. Along the way, Bobby and Stig go after everyone who wronged them leading to their predictable bromance. It’s cinematically organic for these characters to end up literally loving each other till bullets pierce through their flesh.

This has been done several times before. The fact of the matter is that “2 Guns” is mostly variations on well-known themes in cinematic lore. Done right, cliché feels good. Just as a smooth jazz tune ends up at the same place but through a different route from what one expects so does “2 Guns”. The tone of its action scenes plus how fast they go down is quite shocking though. Slower than advertised and more meditative than expected, it manages time for eccentricity and funny repartee between explosions.

Acting here is better than required by regular action movies’ standards. Patton does double duty eliciting mixed feelings from her character as well as us viewers too. Mark Wahlberg plays his cop caricature from “The Other Guys” even louder through Stig’s characterizations; he’s funny bordering sadism and finds real sincerity towards Denzel Washington somewhere there inside himself. As Bobby, however, Denzel just Denzels around: sweet-talkingly charming yet goofing off like hell while being cool like anything else one could imagine.

When Earl tells Bobby he’s going to rape him, Paxton and Denzel basically turn it into the most awesome parody of machismo I’ve seen in forever. In one line on his characteristically weathered face, Edward James Olmos puts an unrivaled depth and menace that the script denies Papi Greco, thus making him less of a stereotype than he might have been.

Well, money is the real star of this movie. It is so large and unwieldy that you would think it’s impossible to move it around. “2 Guns” spends a lot of time on this aspect; when Stig says Bobby should take it all, I wondered how long that must have taken to load into their car. The money itself later in the film outshines both characters to become cooler than ever before hence reaching its climax which the two men are involved in as well.

Flying through the air after an explosion that even destroyed whatever was left of their vehicle these are some typical examples used by $43.125 million showing how badass they had turned out to be. You can see them from TV ads or maybe movies themselves look more beautiful if you watch them at a cinema.

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