Dir Baltasar Kormákur

Written by Blake Masters (Based on the Boom! Studios Graphic Novels by Steven Grant)

Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, James Marsden, Edward James Olmos , Fred Ward, Robert John Burke.

Good friends, Bobby (Washington) and Stig (Wahlberg) run errands for Mexican drug kingpin ‘Papi’ (Olmos). There is just one thing they don’t know about each other, they are both undercover agents trying to bring Papi down. Bobby is DEA, and Stig is Intelligence with US Navy.

When they plan to rob a bank which Papi delivers his cash, and has $3m squared away, they both tell their commanding officers – Bobby to his boss Burke, and partner (and lover) Patton, and Stig to Quince (Marsden). After the robbery, they come out with $43m instead, and a very angry Paxton who is on their trail to find it.

Fun and action packed ‘buddy’ film, with both Washington and Wahlberg delivering with a pretty decent screenplay to work with. They work well together, and have good banter with each other. The action is pretty impressive too, with Kormákur delivering on the action sequences.

The plot is fun, with lots of double crosses, with more twists of who is working for who than a pretzel factory – but it worked. There was a ** spoiler ** shock killing off of a character in the latter part of the film, that felt ‘somewhat’ justified, but was never “truly” avenged.

At 100m, it has an appropriate run time for what the film was, and the pacing is on point. The reveal of Bobby and Stig’s undercover I thought might have been too early, but it needed to be revealed due to the nature of what was yet to come.

The score is complementary to the action that is taking place, and there are a couple of good song choices put in that underplay during some sequences.

Special shout out goes to the late great Bill Paxton who plays the truly evil ‘Earl’ whose identity is not revealed until the third act. He did a great job, and it still reminds me of how sad it was that he left us so early.

This was a decent ‘buddy trope’ film, and a recommend from me.

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