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2 Guns [Blu-ray]

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Whether you consider it a question or an answer, the ironic title of this fast, funny and brutally beautiful buddy thriller is both misleading and perfectly apt. There are way more than two guns in 2 Guns (don't even try to keep count), but the only two that matter are Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as bromantic heroes who create enough chemistry to rival the firepower that makes most everything in 2 Guns go bang. A wildly convoluted plot is redeemed by masses of kinetic energy that come in bursts like controlled automatic weapons fire and by a stream of dialogue and patter that Washington and Wahlberg trade like battling electric guitar riffs. They play Bobby and Stig, the former an undercover DEA agent and the latter a Naval Intelligence officer, who are both on the trail of a bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartel kingpin named Papi (a coldly showy Edward James Olmos). Neither one knows the other's true identity, and they both think the other is simply going to end up as collateral damage when the mission is complete. It's too bad they're in the dark because they really seem to like each other, until they start trying to kill each other, that is. It's boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy finds boys, boy lives happily ever after with boy, all played by two boys who are dynamite personalities on their own and pure magnetic charisma when they're together. The catalyzing event around which the time-shifting movie is thematically structured is a bank robbery in a small border town that goes either horribly wrong or horribly right, depending on any given character's point of view. In undercover mode and still not aware that they're both good guys (although the movie's moral takeaway about good and bad remains pretty muddy), Bobby and Stig discover that the deposit boxes they've raided contain not $3 million, but $43 million. They thought they were ripping off Papi in a caper that made sense for their criminal cover as well as their professional assignment. But after their identities are blown and an oily CIA psychopath named Earl (Bill Paxton, delightfully chewing the scenery) enters the escapade, money, motive, and morality become even more mixed up. Paula Patton as Bobby's ex-lover and current DEA superior punches up the heat, as does James Marsden as a crooked navy commander, and they both add to the elaborate plot with more secrets and double-crosses. All the complexity is tempered by good humor, bad behavior, and enthusiastic acting in a hard-R mix of comedy and violence that's anchored by the buddy connection so effortlessly hammered home by Washington and Wahlberg. The director is Icelandic auteur Baltasar Kormákur, who seems to be channeling Tony Scott in setting a tone as well as following action with an assured grasp on spatial logic and visual clarity. The result is a dynamic and satisfying grownup movie that is sleek and stylish, with moments of genuine emotion and dramatic gravity that permeate the savvy comic overlay. This all could have turned out to be a cartoonish affair, especially considering that the script is based on a graphic novel. But the eye-candy appeal goes deeper than explosions and slow-motion gunplay, with responsibility amply carried away by the two guns who top the bill. --Ted Fry

Product description

2 GUNS - BLU RAY, ISBN13: B00BEIYNDW ISBN10: B00BEIYNDW Material Type: blu_ray