[h2]2. ‘Banter’ is not automatically funny just because people talk fast and insult each other[/h2]
There is more to making an audience laugh at two characters conversing than mountains of dialogue, broad attempts at cleverness, and rapid-fire speech patterns. 2 Guns wants to make us laugh and Wahlberg and Washington’s interactions, but the script has absolutely nothing to offer other than desperate, cloying attempts at ‘humor,’ usually involving one character insulting the other or swearing ‘creatively.’ And in an entertainment landscape where literally dozens of films and TV shows are built around ‘banter,’ you have to be better than this to leave an impression. Hell, you have to be better than this to not make me want to punch the screen in anger, because while good banter can be a lot of fun, bad banter is just painful to sit through. And the banter in 2 Guns is legitimately painful. I found not a single one of these jokes funny, and that is one hell of an accomplishment when you have actors as talented as Wahlberg and Washington delivering the material. They should be able to make something out of just about anything. Alas, they cannot, and that leads us to our last, and most pressing, issue.
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