Being cynical is a dangerous game. Nothing like cynical heroes in a cynical world to lend a generic action thriller some much-valued ‘street’ cachet – but it also risks over-toppling into uninvolving and pointlessly nasty. Something like that happens with 2 Guns, which starts off bracingly cynical, moves to repetitively cynical and ends up unpleasantly cynical. This is a film where the final ‘joke’ involves Denzel Washington deliberately shooting Mark Wahlberg in the leg, even though the two are the best of friends – and even though their relationship is by far the warmest, least cynical part of the movie.
It’s great to see the two actors riffing off each other, arguing about everything (from how to rob a bank to how much to tip a waitress) and trying to anticipate each other’s moves. It’s especially great to see Wahlberg – whose unhappiness is palpable when he’s not enjoying himself – so relaxed and expressive, playing ‘Stig’ who’s apparently a crook but actually in Navy Intelligence. He’s attached himself to Bobby (that’s Denzel), an easy-going rogue nicknamed ‘I Know a Guy’ Bobby for his endless network of criminal buddies – but in fact it’s just a facade because Bobby’s a cop with the DEA, as unaware of Stig’s true identity as Stig is of his, both men planning to set up the other.
As premises go, it’s pretty good; The Departed played a variation on this mirror-image plot, and spun it out for two and a half hours. 2 Guns (which is based on a graphic novel) is much less ambitious, Denzel and Mark finding out the truth about each other even before the one-hour mark – the real point being their common front against a motley assortment of villains, all of them after a cache of stolen money, which is where the film really amps up the cynicism.
We kind of expect Mexican drug kingpin Edward James Olmos to be amoral and sadistic, at one point hanging our heroes upside-down, like sides of beef, and cracking their ribs with a baseball bat – but it’s a surprise to see the CIA acting more like the Mafia, with Bill Paxton as the soft-spoken enforcer who knows how to make people talk. How about a spot of “Russian rooo-let?”, he drawls, taking out his revolver – but puts the gun against the subject’s knee, not his temple, because after all, what if the bullet’s in the first chamber? The gun goes off, eliciting an anguished howl as a victim is kneecapped. “Case in point,” notes Mr. Paxton, dusting off his blood-spattered clothes.
All authority figures are corrupt in 2 Guns. The CIA, as already mentioned, are psychos. Navy Intelligence are behind the bank robbery (Stig naively believes the money will be used to fight drug cartels) – and admittedly it’s just a few bad apples, but when our hero goes to Admiral Tuwey (hard-boiled Fred Ward) and tells him what happened he finds little sympathy, just more pragmatic cynicism. Even love means nothing, Bobby’s ex-girlfriend (Paula Patton) turning out to be not what she seems – though it’s partly Bobby’s fault, for being such a cold cynical bastard. “Did you ever really love me?” she sighs. “I really meant to love you,” he replies, with heartbreaking honesty.
There are fine moments here; I’ll take sharp, neo-noir cynicism over saccharine mush any day of the week. When the Mexican kingpin sneers that “You like my country weak and corrupt, don’t you?” and the CIA bruiser replies: “It’s a free market. Not a free world”, that’s the kind of macho dialogue you want to write down and memorise – and also a reminder that the film is directed by a non-American, Icelandic auteur Baltasar Kormakur who made Contraband (also with Wahlberg), another case of tough, gnarly actors snarling at each other. The effect is a bit like those post-Pulp Fiction crime movies of the 90s, where everyone behaved abominably but sadism was played for (dark) laughs.
That said, 2 Guns doesn’t really satisfy. There are so many sub-plots that the film seems bitty, continually being interrupted as Denzel and Mark are attacked by one faction or another, then the last 20 minutes join the swelling ranks of Hollywood flicks that fall apart in the final stretch (one decision, involving the film’s only female character, seems especially needless). Worst of all, the constant callousness gets a bit wearing over 109 minutes. All we get by way of redemption is Denzel – initially a cynic who insists that “there is no code”, it’s every man for himself – finally bonding with Mark, somewhere in between their big punch-up and the argument over the word ‘misanthrope’. They walk off as friends, buddies, kindred spirits in a cynical world; then Denzel shoots him in the leg (though just the fleshy part). Why can’t we all just get along?
DIRECTED BY Baltasar Kormakur
STARRING Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Bill Paxton, Edward James Olmos
US 2013 109 mins
