2 Guns R
This action-comedy was originally conceived as a vehicle for Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, in the wake of their Wedding Crashers success. Years passed before the project was assigned to Baltasar Kormákur, an Icelandic director who went with his go-to guy, Mark Wahlberg, because the actor helped make Kormákur’s Contraband a winner. The gimmick behind 2 Guns involves two undercover officers from different agencies unaware they’ve both been assigned to infiltrate a drug cartel. Denzel Washington’s DEA agent and Wahlberg’s Naval Intelligence officer only learn of the overlap after the duo steals $40 million dollars from the drug cartel. Neither agent trusts the other, but with the operation and their reputations in jeopardy—not to mention the cartel in hot pursuit—they have no choice but to clean up the mess they’ve made. Whether the chemistry between these two actors will be a home run, or just ho-hum, is the $64 million dollar question. (Lisa Miller)
The Attack R
A Palestinian and an Israeli citizen, Amin is a surgeon highly respected by most of his Jewish colleagues. When a suicide bomber destroys a Tel Aviv restaurant, he is in the operating room treating survivors. But Amin is jailed when his wife, whose corpse is pulled from the rubble, is suspected of being the bomber. Directed by Lebanon’s Ziad Doueiri (who is banned in his homeland but not in Israel), The Attack is insightful on the social malaise of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The screenplay squanders opportunities for drama, but works as a hero’s journey into knowledge and a poetic meditation on the unsuspected distances that can develop between the most intimate people. (David Luhrssen)
Opens Friday, Aug. 2 at Downer Theatre.
