Why is it in the movies everybody knows how to blow s*** up, except, of course, for actual bomb-makers, for whom it can be hit-and-miss? After watching the umpteenth scene of a screen star pressing a button and having and explosion happen in the background, I’m really curious. Is this standard part of cop training/army training/FBI training? Do you get in the first day and somebody in charge says, “here, these are your buttons. Use them wisely … or, you know, don’t. The Academy believes, and I agree, it is far more important you look cool than you do anything remotely responsible with explosives capable of destroying an entire city block?” It seems so easy, and the detonators are always so self-assured. Doesn’t make any sense – isn’t this a science? Personally, I can light a match. And sometimes when I press the remote button the TV turns on. Sometimes.
Neither the undercover DEA officer (Denzel Washington) and the undercover Naval Intelligence officer (Mark Wahlberg) knows the other is a good guy. It helps that neither acts like a good guy. When they rob a bank together, they don’t realize they’ve stolen $43 M from the CIA. Isn’t this what Homeland Security is supposed to be about … connecting the intelligence of all branches of law enforcement so we can all work on the 
same side? Instead, we get much anger. Much shooting. Why even have bad guys at this rate? The law enforcement side is replete with controversy as is.
2 Guns is a film that wants it both ways, constantly. Our heroes are outcastes, but they’re heroes. Our villains are representatives of the same government agencies our heroes represent. We like it when Bobby T (Washington) opts for the Frankenstein option in mask wear, but he stills robs the bank. We like it when Stig (Wahlberg) argues for a more generous tip, but he still burns down the diner. This ends up being a film for people who constantly want it both ways: deadly assassin, but genuine nice guy, home-wrecker with a heart of gold. The action scene in which Stig via laserscope skillfully negotiates Bobby on a cell phone out of a loft with armed bad guys overwhelms the idea the two still don’t know or fully trust one another.
I’m not wild about how the DEA, the CIA, the Army, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Reserve, the Feds, Transit Cops, Campus Cops or the Boy Scouts are portrayed in 2 Guns. It seems every uniformed armed rep of the United States is either corrupt, corruptable or incompetent. While this portrayal has a humorous side, it is also extremely cynical. At that rate, you may as well root for the Bandito.
Denzel fans will go to love Denzel and Marky Mark fans will go to love Mark and if there were any Bill Paxton fans, they’d go to love him, too. They all kinda shine in their own respective ways. Shining together? Ah, now that’s a trick. And it’s one 2 Guns did not quite accomplish.
Rub-a-dub-dank
Three men in a bank
And who do you think they be?
The drug cop, the swabbie
The CIA jobbie
All shooting with endless glee
Rated R, 109 Minutes
D: Baltasar Kormákur
W: Blake Masters
Genre: Comedy, with a side of Macho
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Government detractors
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Not-crooked G-men
