Who's crossing whom?

Film review: 2 Guns (15)
Running time 109 minutes
Rating:**
If you happen to have a CIA agent as a neighbour or friend (you never know in West Berkshire), just mention the film 2 Guns to him or her and note the reaction.
If they look blank and say ‘What film?’, that they didn’t think much of the narrative thread, or that they have always liked actors Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg – they may be being economical with the truth.
Just watch for a telltale twitch at the corner of the eye.
One possible explanation for such r eactions is that there is some grain of truth in the astonishing, and we hope fictional premise, of the tale behind 2 Guns.
Apart from being a fairly dreadful film about – inevitably – guns and shooting, it uses as its central story the idea that the entire drugs industry in Mexico and Central America pays a percentage of its profits to the CIA for permission to continue dumping tons of white sniffing-stuff up American noses.
Bearing in mind the CIA’s past record on getting into bed with drug lords (remember here Vietnam and Central America), some may not think this is entirely fanciful, but it won’t please the CIA.
Still, while we await any possible retribution, let’s deal with the film. Denzel Washington plays Bobby, an undercover Drugs Enforcement Agency agent, trying to set up drug lord Papi (Edward James Olmos) with the help of bank robber and undercover Navy Intelligence man, Stig (not that one), played by Wahlberg.
The pair rob the bank and find not the three million dollars belonging to Papi, but the $43 million belonging to the CIA.
This annoys the CIA who enlist nasty piece of work Earl (Bill Paxton) to find the money.
At this point the film looks as if it’s taking a turn down the No Country for Old Men route – bleak and dangerous – but sadly, not. Instead we become enmeshed in a bewildering pattern of cross, double and triple cross involving the CIA, the DEA, Navy Intelligence, and various friends and relations.
Inevitably, there is much shooting, explosions and people finding they have significant holes in their bodies which do them no good at all.
Washington and Wahlberg have a nice line in buddy chat, shooting each other in a buddy-buddy sort of way, and come up with the odd good line.
Overall, the story is confusing and messy, perhaps indicative of its graphic novel origins, but will have attractions for those who are entertained by snappy dialogue, gratuitous violence and sneaky digs at the CIA.