2 Guns and The Yards

I seem to have been watching a lot of films with Mark Wahlberg in them recently. Previously there was the cops-n-crims drama We Own The Night, and now there's these two films. Firstly, The Yards, through the LoveFilm Instants streaming service.

Fresh out of jail, having taken the rap for his friends, Leo (Wahlberg) tries to get a job at the local train repair yard and gets taken under the wing of corrupt fixer Willie Gutierrez (Joaquin Phoenix) and his boss, and Leo's uncle, Frank Olchin (James Caan).

Made by the same director as We Own The Night, and with the same lead actors, the results are pretty much the same. Phoenix dominates as the corrupt and amoral Gutierrez, increasingly desperate as his plans go awry. Caan gives as good as he gets and brings a certain gravitas that only a man who's played opposite Pacino in the Godfather can. Charlize Theron is a surprise though, almost unrecognisable in what must have been, like Wahlberg, one of her first films. Wahlberg also looks young and is outclassed by the rest of the cast, but this was early in his career and you can see, looking at his later films, that he's improved, probably by knowing what roles he can't do as much as what he can.

Speaking of which, I watched one of his latest films, 2 Guns with Denzel Washington. Two agents, Bobby Trench (Washington) and Mike "Stig" Stigman (Wahlberg), unaware of each others true role, rob a bank to implicate a Mexican drugs baron Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos) and end up stealing $43 million belonging to the CIA.

A more-than-decent action film, with a fair amount of genial banter between the two leads. The plot is above average as well, with enough double crosses to make sure you don't take it for granted. The only thing which lets the whole thing down is the support, with Olmos looking like he can't wait for the cheque to arrive and Bill Paxton trying to be a mean CIA agent. Paula Patton is also underused as the love interest, but this is basically a buddy movie with a few twists and lots of bangs and crashes. Wahlberg takes to his role rather well, but is somewhat outclassed by Washington, as you'd expect (he's better than Sly, though). Overall, pretty good and a superior pizza movie.

Mission Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol

Continuing the Summer of Cinema, via my LoveFilm subscription, I watched the latest IMF offering. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team, implicated in bombing the Kremlin, chase after the culprits to prevent nuclear war between Russia and America.

A superior pizza movie, and exciting enough, although Simon Pegg doesn't look the part (he does get to shoot somebody, though) and his humour grates a little, making the film feel like a kind of "Carry On Mission Impossible" at times.

The set pieces are great including Tom Cruise hanging off the worlds tallest building, breaking into The Kremlin (using a sort of portable Ames room: very clever) and a chase in a car storage building in Mumbai. The supporting cast is good as well, including Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton. Michael Nyqvist isn't bad as the villain, but it required someone to chew the scenery a little more, and Léa Seydoux, as an assassin for hire, was grossly underused. Recommended, however.