2 Guns (2013)

I saw this film last night and surprisingly the ingredients were "all in the right mix".

Honestly its been a while since I've seen Mark Wahlberg in a good film. Maybe because he perfectly fits in this type of comedy-action flicks. I haven't seen Pain & Gain but other reviews were saying it was terrible so i never had prioritized watching it. 2 Guns had been making me curious for the past months since its first trailer was released.

In this film i will just talk about the how general idea of the movie have impact on me and not mainly because of the good actors involved in the film. Sometimes it works when you only know the basic premise with what your watching, nothing more on the details. Lesser expectations, bigger surprises.

First and foremost, I haven't heard of the director (Baltasar Kormakur) in his overall works except that he also did a film - "Contraband" last year with Wahlberg which was pretty much only on the average level in my opinion.

What i like in this movie is that it had me in its "roller-coaster ride" from the beginning until the end. It had some stylish way of showing some old used scenes which had it become appealing and effective. They had a scene there towards the end of the movie like putting all the villains in one venue (it was really not an original idea) but its take to convey it blends perfectly well and contributory to the script.

Character development of Wahlberg and Denzel Washington was also effective that basically all scenes becomes necessary to the overall story. Like Walhberg as a "sharp shooter", he was not presented in a typical shooting range or a "fight sequence" but rather on a "joke" scene by making him shoot some buried chicken with just their heads showing from the ground. Not a single miss he had, all chicken heads were hit bullseye while ironically eating a piece of fried chicken on his other hand.

Denzel's take on his role also was also impressive as usual that he doesn't have to do a "Flight" type of film to show how good he can act.  For whatever worth's saying, both main actors had great chemistry on film. On the other hand, all the other supporting casts like Paula Patton, James Marsden, Edward James Olmos, and Bill Paxton were very contributory to the overall result of the film.

Finally, what kept me engaged all throughout this film is its dialogue and story. Interesting good one-liners, a generous amount of humor, and surprises in each corner of its complex intended form of a simple old story had the reel all rolling smoothly.