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Created Aug 10, 2013 12:33AM PST • Edited Aug 07, 2023 06:01PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   OK 2.5

   A merely OK movie can still be enjoyable if it’s got something outstanding about it. Primo buddies do the trick in 2 Guns. The rest of the cast and film? Less than stellar and just OK. Plus the title doesn’t help.

   2 Guns is too blunt – so 2 speak.

   I wanted to bump up my final summary half a tick to reach Good at 3.0 given how terrific the leading men are. I also want to be less ornery than Tripod, but couldn’t in the end. In fact, it’s scary how close our grades are for this movie. Here I thought I was going my own way. Apparently not. Again.

   He went Barely OK on Film. I went full OK, proving what a nice guy I am. Otherwise we’re pretty much equal across all 5 SAFER categories, including Sordid and Surreal on Edginess and Reality. Truth outs.

   Baltasar Kormákur opens on Denzel Washington and Mark Walhberg buddying as two gunmen on the loose, a movie moment if ever there was one: Marky Mark and Malcolm X kicking ass and taking names. Wahlberg’s funny as hell, fully embracing his inner moviestar, all winking at waitresses and shit.

   The story is Leftist fantasy, seditious crap really, what with the CIA & Navy as rogue American Knights rampaging as übermenschen amongst the hoi polloi. Consider it a case study in how Hollywood thinks.

   Did I mention that it’s highly surreal? 3x Reality Circumstantially, 2.9x Biologically and just 1.8x Physically averages to a 2.6x on the overall normal reality scale. That reaches halfway into the surreal.

   That much reality distortion don’t come cheap. The long credit roll includes huge 2nd Unit & FX crews.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Denzel Washington adds another classic Denzel character. ‘Bobby T’ is the man who knows somebody, sleeps with his gorgeous handler and throws down with men half his age. Big D, we dig everything you still throw down. You’re two laps into De Niro territory. Not crowded there, at all.

   Mark Wahlberg has a breakout role. OK, that’s goofy to say about a guy who makes half a dozen movies a year. Johnny Depp needs a full Presidential term to make half a dozen movies. But I don’t remember the Boston Bod this funny before. Dude’s learned how to deliver a line and make it work.

   Paula Patton’s role is largely to get ogled. She’s very ogolicious, so that’s OK. Great attitude, great smile, great lingerie, not convincing as a senior DEA Agent. Fooling around with her subordinate has nothing to do with it. She’s just too nice to command a tough-as-nails unit.

   Now the major falloff:

   • Bill Paxton’s Mr. Big Bad Man is labored.
   • Fred Ward’s Admiral Big Shit is cardboard.
   • James Marsden’s rogue Navy Officer is shallow.
   • Edward James Olmos’s drug lord is weak.
   • Robert John Burke’s DEA muckymuk is daytime TV.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars Barely OK 2.0

8. Male Costars OK 2.5

10. Film

    OK 2.5

    Baltasar Kormákur once made a much better movie with Mark Wahlberg than 2 Guns. Maybe it’s because he didn’t have to accommodate two alpha male stars in Contraband or maybe because it was a remake of his Icelandic original Reykjavik-Rotterdam.

    In any case, Contraband was way less outré from a Reality POV. Not that it was realistic, not by a long shot. It didn’t aspire to Wanted territory as 2Guns does however, and that made all the difference.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Pretty Bad 1.5

    The film is based on a Graphic Novel, which explains a lot.

13. Music Pretty Bad 1.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.9

    Topless Paula, mucho mayhem, minimal gore

    About that first, since you’re probably stuck on it, er, her, here’s the scoop from Yahoo Movies.

    Or is that Yahoo! Movies?

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

18. Violence Brutal 3.1

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.6

    Tripod said “The story goes non-linear increasingly as the movie progress through its two hours.” Right.

    The notion of Navy Intel crossed with Special Ops running a black-bag operation inside the United States is surreal as a matter of basic expectation. Add in heavy weaponry and we’re talking complete bat-shit.

    Thus the movie is most surreal circumstantially. Physically and biologically it features dancing around gunfire and taking a lot of hits yet always coming back chipper for more. Well, Wahlberg anyway.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Surreal 2.9

24. Physical Glib 1.8