Friday, August 16, 2013

What Happened To The Cop Buddy Picture?


I liked the snappy patter and all the ways that I can see the wheels turning in Denzel Washington's head. He can play this kind of fast talking and faster thinking hustler in his sleep. In 2Guns he dials it up to '11'. It was fun to watch. There are so many parts that made me giggle and I have missed that feeling from this genre. Mark Walberg is also playing so close to type that the should be embarrassed for taking money for this job. He is just Marky Mark and that's okay. Marky Mark is a guy I would want to have this kind of an adventure with. I trusted his dumb ass from the beginning.


Sure the thick script makes your brain hurt with all the unnecessary twists and turns but it was fun. They kept the story hopping and didn't make me think too much. The action was crisp and efficient but the whole exercise is just fluff. Nothing you haven't seen before. Here it's done just above average and that makes it a pleasant enough diversion. Meh.

 
Washington and Wahlberg play Bobby and Stig, respectively, a couple of undercover agents working the Mexican drug cartel of one Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). The twist is, Bobby and Stig are working for different agencies - Bobby for the DEA and Stig for naval intelligence - and neither knows the other's secret. After they decide to steal $3 million from Greco's bank, the cat gets out of the bag, and the two are forced to work on saving each other's skin. What they believed to be $3 million is actually $43 million. The money belongs to the CIA, and it isn't long before the number of people each man can trust gets dwindled down to only each other.

 

1 comment:

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

As far as where has this time of movie gone. My theory has been that sub-genre like this come in cycles. Someone will start with a strong/popular film, then there will be sequels, follow ups and imitators, by then you get cheap knocks and parodies. But then you need something new to come along and reinvigorate the sub genre.

I use superhero movies as a prime example. In the '90s Tim Burton gave us Batman and blew our minds. Everyone wanted a comic book movie like that so we got a string of pulp hero flicks like The Shadow, The Rocketeer and Dick Tracy. Towards the end of the decade when we ran out of older heroes there was a mad scramble for comic book movies. Companies were cashing in their chips for any kind of title tie-in, thinking that a comic title had a built in audience so we got a string of stinkers like Spawn, Steel and finally Batman & Robin.

The 2000s reinvented superheroes on the silver screen by starting from scratch with the characters to make sure they would have broad appeal and the best effects they could do.