Buddy comedy by the numbers, entertaining but forgettable, especially when you care little about what's going on on the screen and you're ultimately wondering what all the fuzz was all about. Only the protagonists' chemistry makes this somewhat watchable.

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg aren't strangers to fronting acclaimed films in equally acclaimed performances; but they have something else in common. Neither actor has shied away from making a plethora of less critically prestigious, Hollywood action pictures; often heightening the proceedings with charisma alone. "2 Guns" is such a movie, and because of it's stars is also a good one. Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, who previously worked with Wahlberg on the solid "Contraband," "2 Guns" establishes itself as an equally energetic take on familiar material from the very first scene. The snappy dialogue, humor, and great chemistry between leads last throughout and isn't tired after this initial sequence. Along the way we get the likes Bill Paxton, James Marsden, and Edward James Olmos who indulge in a little screen chewing of their own. For an action movie with ambitions planted firmly in the visceral, "2 Guns" is surprisingly teeming with plot. There's the obligatory cross, double cross, hell even a quadruple cross, in a deceptive web that involves two undercover agents, the CIA, Naval intelligence, and even a drug cartel... oh my! Halfway through I didn't know who was playing who yet, or how everything fit together, but too the writer's credit, we never feel overwhelmed, duped, and everything ties together in an entertaining whole. The film does end abruptly after a fun build up, which is one of my only knocks plot wise. Even with everything I've just said, "2 Guns" comes down to Washington and Wahlberg. They are exciting to watch and have a great, more importantly believable chemistry. The stakes get high, but we never believe they are in anything but complete control. They command their standalone actioners, but for obvious reasons the results are even more successful here. "2 Guns" is great fun, with a complex plot that is a tribute to it's comic roots. We get a lot of films like this each year, but director Kormákur's stylish effort is one to see regardless. It is derivative. But it's rock solid and elevated by it's two leads.