Hollywood offers us way too many good movies to make our boring summer afternoons a little better. Let me introduce you to a movie with the perfect balance of crazy and sanity. A lot of action with a side of romance and spoiler alert, and a few murders as well.
‘2 guns’ starring the dashing duo of Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as leads, directed by Baltasar Kormákur. It was originally adapted from the same-named comic book series developed by Steven Grant and Mateus Santolouco, which was published by Boom! Studios in 2007. The film debuted on August 2, 2013, in the United States. Filming was done in New Orleans, Louisiana, and several locations in New Mexico.
Actor and director Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. has been credited with reinventing “the notion of classic cinema stardom.” Washington has won several honors through the course of a career spanning more than four decades, including Two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Silver Bear Awards, and a Tony Award. American actor, entrepreneur, and former rapper Mark Wahlberg has starred in comedies, dramas, and action films. His numerous honors include a BAFTA Award.
This was Wahlberg and Kormákur’s second time working together on a film, 2 Guns. They had previously collaborated on the movie Contraband (2012). Also, it is Washington and Patton’s second time working together after their appearance in Déjà Vu (2006).
- Director – Baltasar Kormákur
- Release Date – August 2, 2013
- Cast – Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, James Marsden
- Where To Watch – Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV
- Watch the Trailer – on Youtube
- Our Rating – 6/10
The Premise
Two crooks working together are Robert “Bobby” Trench and Michael “Stig” Stigman. Two strangers, who’ve only been acquainted for ten months, have eyes set on robbing the bank. The two’s past is unknown to each other and the audience as the movie begins. How did they arrive at this decision?
Well, both have dealings with a cartel lord named Papi. Bobby and Stig visit him in the middle of nowhere in Sonora, Mexico. Bobby has an uptight personality, but he’s known as someone who always gets the job done and possesses witty humor, unabashedly carefree and spontaneous. The two, for sure, make for a fascinating criminal duo.
The cartel lord’s lair is rather gruesome. It filled with cowboys playing around shooting heads off of chickens, grilling meat, and drinking. Ta man greets them, supposedly the right hand of Papi, the cartel lord. Meanwhile, Bobby walks up to three men on the porch, sitting around a table, and asks permission to sit.
The men were cynically jolly and allowed him to sit. The chair had a bag, which Bobbly put down from the chair to sit on. Bobby asks about a man called Little Toro, and the men mockingly point at the same bag.
That bag had the head of Little Toro cut off from his body with mosquitoes buzzing about. Bobby was shocked and taken aback, knowing the seriousness of the danger these people could bring if messed around with.
Bobby insists Stig stays back and waits while Bobby deals diplomatically alone. Of course, there’s a comical little back and forth which goes on, but Stig eventually complies.
Bobby is shown inside a ranch, with an aggressive bull secure inside the stable and Papi, the cartel lord, seemingly expecting to see him. There is a slight shift in Bobby’s personality, and he turns lively as he greets the cartel lord. Assured him the job, which was to make fake passports, had been well done. Papi is satisfied and receives the passports and hands him a thick envelope filled with all cash.
This is where things change. Bobby reminds Papi, the cartel lord, that their deal included cocaine as payment for the fake passports. Bobby doesn’t hold back his dissatisfaction, assuming the person he’s negotiating with is a wild and dangerous man.
Papi doesn’t seem to care and is not affected by Bobby’s disappointment. He tells Bobby that he shouldn’t act out too much because he’s easily replaceable. Bobby stands firm on his argument and throws back the thick envelope of cash, which he never cared to even count. Bobby declares that now Papi owes him a favor as long as he’s not given drugs just as the deal entailed.
Bobby returns safely for now and notices Stig taunting the other cowboys’ shooting skills, pulling their legs, and just being noisy. As they are about to take off, Stig pulls his own gun out and shoots all the chicken heads off precisely, shocking the cowboys and proving his skills are top-notch and he’s not just all talk.
This dissatisfactory encounter leads Bobby to get back at the cartel lord, and he sets up the idea and the plan of looting a bank where Papi supposedly stashes a lot of his money in safety deposit lockers.
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The Dilemmas and Backstabbing Continue
Bobby and Stig are undercover agents on a mission to incriminate Papi, the cartel lord. Undisclosed to each other, Stig is a US Navy SEAL and Petty Officer 1st Class in the US Navy Office of Naval Intelligence, and Bobby is a covert DEA Special Agent. Both are terrific at what they do.
The plot gets intense as both try to perform the mission without getting caught by the other. This is where the trouble began for both. Their mission was to find drugs on Papi, the cartel lord. Since they never received cocaine from Papi, their entire mission was put in jeopardy.
As they are driving back from Mexico to the United States, the border patrol gets a hold of them. Both are questioned separately; this is where it’s revealed that Bobby is a DEA as his boss and supervisor rendezvous here at the questioning.
Bobby has to report back the failed attempt at getting drugs from Papi. His boss warns him that this entire mission might need to come to an end as the risks are increasing. But Bobby couldn’t take no for an answer as for he had invested in the case for three years.
Later, Bobby is seen with the supervisor, Paula Patton, as DEA Special Agent Deb Rees, who happens to be a love interest. Bobby tells her that he plans to loot a bank affiliated with the cartel lord’s financial activities. Use that money to trace back to Papi and incriminate him of tax evasion. He instructed her to have their team ready to invade the bank at 3:05.
She is unconvinced yet supportive. There seems to be secrecy surrounding their relationship. Both are invested and detached. Perhaps it’s their job which brings the gap. Bobby confides in her his motives to set up Stig for the gig, and if that turns out bad for Stig, Bobby wouldn’t mind as long as the mission is accomplished.
On the other hand, Stig has his own superiors to report back to and take the next orders from. Since he’s from the Navy Seals, there is a lot more intensity related to the orders, and superiors need to be satisfied with no wiggle room for mistakes or failures in the mission.
The two, still strangers to the reality of each other’s motive, set the plan to rob the bank in motion. Bobby and Stig visit the diner opposite the targeted bank and observe to produce the best strategy.
The 45 Most Evil Anime Characters Of All Time worked out fine, but Bobby had instructed his DEA counterpart to have their team ready at 3:05 outside the bank, but no one showed up to catch them. This was unprecedented. His strategy came to a halt.
Both took off far into the desert with the money. As they stopped to check on it, they very quickly realized that this amount was a lot more than the expected 3 million dollars. This is where Bobby decides to reveal his true identity, and Stig immediately sees him pull his gun and shoot him in his hand in defense.
As Bobby fell to the ground, Stig saw his ID Badge and immediately left with the money, leaving Bobby in the desert with a gunshot wound. Stig goes straight back to his Navy base to report to his supervisor, James Marsden, as U.S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander, Harold Quince. There he submits the total amount robbed, which totaled 43 million dollars.
To his surprise, Stig contacts Bobby from a sniper post across the street when Bobby goes to Stig’s to get the money. Stig assists Bobby in escaping from the apartment as a killing team dispatched by Quince assaults.
As Bobby goes to inform his employer Jessep of what has transpired, the CIA guys are there. His boss had been kidnapped, and they were interrogating him about the money. However, the CIA murders Jessup in his home to get Bobby to tell the truth.
Neither Bobby nor Stig were aware of the fact that the money belonged to the slush funds of the CIA. Harold Quince and agent Deb Reese had actually planned all this out and used both Bobby and Stig as puppets to get their hands on the money which they intended to steal from them for their own gains.
Deb is later taken hostage by Papi and killed because Bobby is unable to find the money and bring it back to Papi. This was not the only issue at hand.
Looking into the matter, Bobby and Stig go back to the basics and kidnap Papi, the original culprit and target, to understand why the amount of money was way higher than they could fathom. Eventually, Papi confesses this amount as the commission the CIA takes from gangsters to leave their business alone.
With the CIA’s money in their possession, the danger looming was higher than expected. DEA had let go of Bobby’s back, and Stig was sacrificed for the better reputation of the Navy by his superior. Both then decided to genuinely join hands together in order to save their lives.
In the end, Stig travels to meet Papi, claiming to settle the matter by giving the whole amount to him, but he is actually backstabbing by inviting quince to show up there at the ranch, kill Papi and take the money. Both Papi and Quince strike a 50-50 deal and decide to kill Stig.
But Stig never had the money; Bobby comes in with the money with the CIA on his tail. He promised them the return of their money which was all a part of their plan. Bobby blasts the car with 43 million in it, and a killing spree begins. Both Bobby and Stig walk out of there alive and 2 million richer.
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The Verdict
The concept is a classic American film, an action comedy starring two popular actors as undercover cops, with a hot and cold friendship and a lot of trust-building circumstances, which adds interest for the viewers. The idea of us against the world is pertinent in the movie.
The brotherhood and synastry of the lead characters flow authentically, and it becomes the main attraction of the movie but other than that, the entire plot is a cliché.
Yet, it is evident no compromise was spared to bring something different to the table. From the sharpness of the script to the surprising twists, the movie was a good one-time watch. The Most impressive element which keeps you intact in your chair is the cinematograph.
From the very initial scene, which takes place in Hollywood’s favorite spot, a diner. From the drive to Mexico to the blast in the car. All the scenes will spark nostalgia for old classic Hollywood. The idea of everything falling into place is strong, as in the end all the bad boys are dead.
It is different from the rest of the action-undercover agent-comedy films because all characters get appropriate screen time as per story relevance. It is not overly romantic, the heroes aren’t unrelatable and the bad guys are not gruesome but not glamorized. This helps the movie slide out of the cliché element attached to this genre of films.
The film doesn’t leave you hanging with your feelings in the dark because of the lack of closure. ‘2 guns’ concludes with a wholesome climax. The characters’ personalities are shown to have cultivated a bond despite their pragmatic beginnings.
The personality of the leads carries on to be entertaining and worth watching throughout the film. How they’re shown opposites to each other is somewhat intolerable despite their mutual intention makes their partnership work out solutions necessary to break out of trouble. From strangers to enemies to then partner in crime. Their Partnership evolved throughout the journey.
The film ‘2 guns’ reminds me of the saying, ‘when life gives you lemons, make a lemonade,’ which is a traditional saying that encourages optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of difficulty or disaster.
The film ‘2 guns’ is an ode to classic brotherhood and happy endings, and we would rate this 3/5.
Our Rating: 3/5
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