zaterdag 30 november 2013

2 Guns (2013)

Summary

Robert Trench, an undercover DEA agent, takes advantage of gunman Michael Stigman's idea to rob a bank to bust him and a mob boss. However, it proves too successful with much more money seized than anticipated with Trench's forces not stopping the getaway. Complicating things still more, Stigman turns out to be a Naval Intelligence agent who shoots Trench and takes the money.

Genre : Action/Comedy
Country : USA

Cast :
Mark Wahlberg : Michael Stigman
Denzel Washington : Robert Trench
Paula Patton : Deb

Director :
Baltasar Kormakur

My opinion

"You're my people and we have a code. You fight for the guy that's fighting next to you."

What supposed to be an action/comedy, turned out to be a boring somnolent movie. The "somnolent" part is meant literally. It took me two sessions to watch it because I fell asleep somewhere in the middle. The movie was "THAT" intriguing. It's an exhausting movie with a relatively chaotic story.

The action was limited to a very uninspired gunfight at the end of the film. I had little hope that the fierce-looking bull would work out his frustration on Papi Greco. Unfortunately, this was not the case. We surely would get some beautiful images. The rest of the action is just some boys bragging.

Now let's talk about the humor. Was there any humor anyway ? My granddad's humor was far more better than what the two men exhibited here. And my grandfather's humor was not more then the "pull my finger" joke. This movie was no more than a crossfire of one-liners. It was a constant competition between the two of them to come up with the coolest one-liner. Even in a hopeless situation while hanging upside down, they still tried to be funny at that ultimate last minute. Bruce Willis did this trick many years ago in the first "Die Hard" films.

Denzel Washington was a real bad ass. He has the perfect looks and feelings for someone like that. It seemed as if he just walked of the set of "Training Day" or "Safe house". If you look at Washington's career, you know in advance that he's going to perform in a very solid way and he's someone who can bring a movie to a higher level. Well it didn't help much in this movie.

Mark Wahlberg on the other hand, doesn't have the mentality to look like a tough guy with whom you don't want to get in trouble with. With his toothpaste smile and his angels face he's rather a smooth guy who makes women faint. He always reminds me of a snobbish pretentious pushful man. This movie resembles "Pain & Gain" where he also plays a would-be action figure. The latter movie wasn't my taste either. I rather see him play a part like he did in "Contraband". Paula Patton tried to make it a bit more interesting with some functional nudity, but at time it was already too late.

Since it's an adaptation of a comic book , the story is not profound and sometimes unreal naive. The fact that the two men operate along each other without them knowing they both work undercover, could have given this movie an interesting touch. Eventually, it just got on my nerves. More than anything else. The story proceeds in a highly creative way : both men plan a bank robbery to screw a mob boss, only to find out that they stole money from the CIA. The result of it all is that they got chased by an extremely perfectionist gang. By the way, I thought that Earl, the important person of the CIA, was quite a psychopathic cruel little man who continuously tortured everybody to get that money back. We end with a bang and swirling dollar bills. And you already know it's not the full amount that flies in the air. Not very original !

The best and the most funny moment in the whole film was the shooting of the chickens (All Greenpeace members in Europe will be perplexed,dazed and upset). At that time, Wahlberg was at its best. Unfortunately, only that brief moment.