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" Director: Baltasar Korm\u00C3\u00A1kur; Screenwriter Blake Masters ; Starring: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, James Marsden; Running time: 109 mins; Certificate: 15      The poster for 2 Guns, which features a back-to-back Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington enthusiastically wielding firearms as money rains around them, might be the year&amp;#039;s most accurate piece of film marketing. Stylish, instantly forgettable and so formulaic that it inspires an instant sense of d\u00C3\u00A9j\u00C3\u00A0 vu, the image tells you everything you need to know about director Baltasar Korm\u00C3\u00A1kur&amp;#039;s follow-up to Contraband.  Wahlberg and Washington strike up a wry anti-bromantic chemistry that single-handedly sustains what&amp;#039;s otherwise a breathtakingly familiar brawn-over-brains thriller; a lot of improv went into their patter, and it shows. Wahlberg&amp;#039;s smirking loose-cannon Stig is undercover for the Navy; Washington&amp;#039;s more serious Trench is undercover for the DEA, and both believe the other to be a real criminal.  In the course of their dealings with a drug baron (Edward James Olmos) and another mysterious villain (Bill Paxton), the pair variously go rogue, follow orders, hold each other at gunpoint, join forces, dodge assassination, mete out violent justice and trade a whole lot of snide barbs. There&amp;#039;s little logic to any of it except the last part, and absolutely no dramatic stakes to speak of - neither character ever seems to believe they&amp;#039;re in genuine danger, and we&amp;#039;re never given much of a reason to care if they are.   But wait, you&amp;#039;re thinking. The guns and the bros have been accounted for, but what of the rain of money?!? After the guys rob a bank in order to obtain key evidence to use against Olmos (because search warrants are for pussies, or something), they discover an inexplicably huge stash of cash totalling $43 million. This in turns leads them into a murky web of corruption and grand-scale deceit that might be noirish if it weren&amp;#039;t so thinly drawn.  Korm\u00C3\u00A1kur is a pro at directing meat-and-potatoes action with flair and efficiency, but he can&amp;#039;t overcome the script&amp;#039;s jarring blend of glib banter with borderline sadistic violence. Without the latter, 2 Guns would be a straightforwardly brainless experience, rather than one that leaves you largely entertained but intermittently uneasy.  And tight though Blake Masters&amp;#039;s script is, there are a few too many concessions to genre convention; Trench has an on-off thing with fellow DEA agent Deb (Paula Patton), a plotline that seems to exist solely to facilitate &amp;quot;brief nudity&amp;quot; and resolves in a way that only emphasises how little we care about any of these people.  It&amp;#039;s so much fun to watch Wahlberg and Washington circle each other that you can forgive a lot of 2 Guns&amp;#039; flaws, but even their sparky dynamic becomes repetitive after a certain point. Interludes of ultra-violence aside, it&amp;#039;s a brusque, slick and occasionally witty thriller that leaves no lasting impression whatsoever.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a506203/2-guns-review-mark-wahlberg-and-denzel-washington-are-anti-buddies/>