3.5 stars. Rating: R, for violence, profanity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.2.13
This summer could be subtitled
The Revenge of the Comic Book.
Or, perhaps, yet another reminder
that imitation isn’t always the sincerest form of flattery.
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| Bobby (Denzel Washington, left) and Stig (Mark Wahlberg) eye each other warily, navigating serious trust issues, while they wonder what to do with the drug kingpin they've trapped in the trunk of their vehicle. As it turns out, that guy's gonna be the least of their worries... |
I don’t refer merely to obvious
candidates such as Iron Man 3, Wolverine or Man of Steel. RED 2 and R.I.P.D. also are based on graphic novels, and the latter demonstrates the
folly of believing that folks will queue up simply because something IS a
big-screen adaptation of such a property.
Clever ideas are a great start,
but they’re no substitute for a sharp screenplay that understands the need to
sustain our involvement for the next few hours. Many of today’s one-shot
graphic novels suffer from the same malady that infects numerous movies: a
slick one-sentence concept that doesn’t know where to go from Page 3.
Happily, 2 Guns — derived from
Steven Grant’s five-issue miniseries of the same title — rises above that level
of mediocrity. Blake Masters’ screenplay is quite witty, and stars Denzel
Washington and Mark Wahlberg get plenty of mileage from their snarky frenemy
dynamic. If the core plot doesn’t always stand up to scrutiny, that probably
wasn’t high on director Baltasar Kormákur’s goals anyway; he obviously set out
to make a pleasurable popcorn flick, with enjoyable results. He achieves a tone
that evokes pleasant memories of 1987’s Lethal Weapon.
As was true with RED 2, we’re
not that bothered by whatever propels our central characters, as long as they
keep entertaining us.
And, credit where due, this
film’s twisty first act definitely keeps us guessing. If my next few paragraphs
seem unduly vague or misleading, blame a desire to preserve at least some of
the early surprises.
We meet Bobby Trench (Washington)
and Michael “Stig” Stigman (Wahlberg) as they case the Tres Cruces Savings
& Loan from a diner across the street in a small Texas border town. Their
goal seems decidedly larcenous, but they can’t really be bad guys, because they
flirt so coyly with the waitress, and because they’re our stars,
fercryinoutloud.
One flashback later, it appears
that Stig and Bobby are trying to set up Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos), a
drug kingpin who does his dirty work in Mexico, while leading what seems an
ordinary life as husband and father in an upscale Texas community. At least, it
seems like this is what’s going down, but the edges quickly get fuzzy; far too
many additional players pop up at the fringes of this undercover sting ... if
indeed that’s the game in the first place.
