2 Guns (2013)

It's weird how you can talk about something in a casual conversation and then that very thing happens to you just a few hours later.  I was talking movies with a friend and he was giving me crap for liking Bullet to the Head.  I justified it by saying I can forgive a lot of things in a movie, especially an action movie, if it delivers on what I expect.  Like, if a movie has a few good action scenes, a great villain or supporting performance, or funny dialog, then I can look past some shaky acting or plot elements.  Later that evening, I watched 2 Guns and got that freaky sense of deja vu.

Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Marcus Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) are working with the Mexican underworld.  After a deal goes south with crime lord Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos), they rob a bank where they know Greco usually keeps about three million bucks in safe deposit box.  It's revealed early on that Trench is really an undercover DEA agent.  After the bank heist, Trench moves to bring Stigman in, only Stigman beats him to the punch.  Turns out Stigman is working undercover for the military and was going to bring Trench in.  That these two are really undercover is also spoiled by the trailer, so thanks for that, trailer makers.

Now here's where things get head-spinningly convoluted.  Rather than the three million expected, there's closer to over 40 million, so the pair suspect something's amiss.  After Stigman turns the money in back to his commander (James Marsden), they turn on him and try to kill him.  The DEA similarly turns their backs on Trench.  There's a third, mystery person (Bill Paxton) after them too, and don't forget that Papi Greco wants his money back as well.  Trench and Stigman are are forced to team back up to track down the money and find out why everyone wants them dead.

2 Guns suffers from something I've complained about lately where you have too many players, too many people whose motivations are unclear, and back stabbing and double crossing galore.  It's needlessly busy and complex.  We're more than halfway through the film before we finally figure out what's going or who some of these people actually are.  I feel like with some of these films they are so afraid of being called dumb, that they add all these extra twists and turns to keep you guessing.  Simple and cliched is fine when done well.

However, simple can work against you, too.  Multiple times in the film a character will have no real plan for what they are about to do, but it all works out anyway.  There's one long sequence where they break into Stigman's base where they plan is little more than, "I'm gonna cause a diversion, and you just wander around casually and nobody will notice you."  It's as if the characters all knew in advance where to be and when.  Then, the climax suffers from 'big, dumb action' syndrome where you see all the typical crap you hate in a movie; people casually walk away from explosions, there's a Michael Bay-style, slo-mo-spinning shootout (the poster at the top is no exaggeration), etc.  There are some well executed scenes though.  When director Baltasar Kormákur can stay away those types of action cliches he does a good job, and some of the scenes actually had a humorous tone to them, despite that they didn't pull many punches.  It's a violent film for sure.  Maybe it's because I saw this on RPX, but I thought the sound really pounded the feel of the action into you.

The strength of Blake Masters screenplay is that the dialog is very fun throughout.  It's not all silly one liners either.  The banter between Trench and Stigman is often hilarious, and the two felt like old friends or brothers.  Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg really sell it and the chemistry between the two of them is fantastic.  They're such a good pairing that it makes you hope for a sequel where they've set up their own private investigator business or as partners in another buddy cop film.  I was actually reminded of Lethal Weapon in parts.  They really made the film worth watching and it just goes to show you that if you get two actors that are committed and work well together, they can elevate the material.

The supporting cast is rounded out with James Marsden, who once again seems criminally underused.  Admiral Adama (Olmos) is good in his limited role, and I like that he's starting to take on more bad guys in recent roles.  Paula Patton's character is one where her motivation was all over the place.  It's not her best work, but at least she finally gets a chance to show her 'assets'.  My favorite of the supporting roles was Bill Paxton who has a fun, scenery-chewing performance.  It's the best I've seen him in a while, and continues to prove the rule that it's more fun to play a villain.  I'm still begging for him to do a movie as Chet from Weird Science.

2 Guns is a cliched and messy story, but it's elevated by the great chemistry and performances of Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.  Fans of old-school action films should get a kick out of the (mostly) fun action, and banter between the characters.  I was a little nervous that I wasn't going to enjoy this, but I had a good time and felt it was a good movie to start August with.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Disconnect (2013)

Every year I make a resolution to 'disconnect', but it never lasts more than a few days.  It's not that I have any kind of internet addiction, it's just easier to ping someone on Facebook than it is to pick up a phone, even if it's the same phone I'm using to look at Facebook.  Kind of sad, really...

Disconnect follows a familiar format where you have several stories that eventually intertwine as they develop.  There are three main stories that all center around some kind of technology.  First, we have a reporter (Andrea Riseborough) that's investigating underage teens being used in online, sex chat rooms.  She interviews one boy (Max Thieriot) and hopes her report will be her big break as a reporter.

Then, we have a couple (Alexander Skarsgård and Paula Patton) that's having marital issues after the death of their child.  They've grown apart and she spends her time reaching out to people in chat rooms as her husband won't talk to her.  While on a business trip, they find out that someone has stolen their identity and cleaned out their bank account.  As the police are moving too slow, they hire a private investigator (Frank Grillo) to track down the man that stole from them.

Finally, a boy (Jonah Bobo) is cyberbullied by two classmates (Colin Ford and Aviad Bernstein) by creating a fake Facebook profile and tricking him into an extremely embarrassing situation.  Things spiral out of control and his father (Jason Bateman) is left trying to find out what happened.

Sometimes these types of films suffer from having too many characters, or not giving them enough depth, but one of my favorite things about Disconnect is that you learn a great deal about everyone without tons of exposition or explicitly being told.  You aren't spoonfed info and director Henry Alex Rubin trusts the audience to be smart enough to figure this stuff on their own.  I found myself caring about each story, so there was no drop off or drastic shift in tone when going back and forth.  A lot of times when watching movies that follow this format, I find that there's usually one story or set of characters that's not as interesting or that I don't care about.  That's not the case here and I credit writer Andrew Stern as well as Rubin for creating a story with relatable characters and situations.  I also credit them for staying away from too much melodrama while gradually building tension as things escalate.

My only real complaint about the story, is that I thought some of the details regarding the identity theft thread felt a little forced to me.  I'm primarily basing this on my own personal experiences with identity theft, and I understand that not every situation is going to be the same, but my experiences have been much different than what they went through in Disconnect.  It's a minor complaint though.  It didn't ruin the film for me or anything like that.

It's interesting that the title is called Disconnect, when that seems to be the message or goal for the audience, rather than what actually happens in the film.  I see the phrase "cautionary tale" being thrown about a lot in discussion of this film, but I didn't really feel that it was preachy enough to be a cautionary tale as much as it was a character drama.  After watching Disconnect though, I did come away from it feeling like I need revisit my resolution to stop spending so much time on Facebook or Twitter and work on actual in-person interaction.  I think the world would be better off if we all worked on that a bit.

While there aren't a lot of huge names in the cast, there really isn't a weak performance in the group.  All of the characters (even the bullies) manage to come off as sympathetic.  I give Jason Bateman crap for playing the same role over and over, but Disconnect is a movie finally that allows him to play a different type of role and show a side of him we don't normally see.  It really is well-acted across the board.  Even scenes where characters aren't even verbally communicating, but communicating through online chat, you get some kind of emotional depth from them.

Disconnect is easily in my top five of the best films I've seen so far in 2013.  It's a wonderfully acted dramatic thriller, that'll make you think a little about how we use technology in today's world.  It might actually get you to disconnect a little yourself.  Don't miss this one.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars