’2 Guns’ Trailer: Lots of Action, Lots of Laughs, Lots of Denzel and Wahlberg

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are two guys who know what to do in an action movie – Washington is good at being tough and heroic, and they both have a talent for kicking butt. But would you expect them to be funny together?

Universal Pictures wants you to know that, yes Denzel and Marky Mark can toss off clever dialogue while dashing through mayhem and outrunning the bad guys in the new trailer for "2 Guns," an action thriller due this August.

The trailer starts with two guys in a vintage muscle car exchanging some vaguely Tarantino-esque dialogue about whether the following really is a well-known saying: "Never rob a bank across from a diner that has the best doughnuts in three counties."

Check out the trailer here:

As it turns out, moments later, those guys -- Bobby (Washington) and Stig (Wahlberg) -- are in fact robbing a bank across the street from that very diner, which is full of cops. Despite that drawback, the guys are soon driving away with a pickup truck full of cash, and when they pull over, Bobby figures they've gotten away with $40 million. Bobby then pulls out a gun and a badge, and we learn both guys are working for different law enforcement agencies – Bobby (Denzel Washington) is with the DEA, and Stig (Mark Wahlberg) is a petty officer with the Naval Police's Special Forces branch. The news doesn't go over well with either of them, leading to a car chase and a fistfight. But Stig agrees when Bobby says, "The bank was a set up. We've gotta find out whose money that was."

"Like we're working together?" Stig asks.

"No, not like we're working together," Bobby says with distain. "Like we're working in the same vicinity. In the same area code"

Like it or not, Bobby and Stig really are working together, and they're promptly ambushed by some scary looking guys with guns, and told by a sinister looking fellow (played by Edward James Olmos), "You ripped off the CIA." Bobby and Stig are given an ultimatum to get the cash out of lock up in 24 hours, and soon the two lawmen are up against some serious crashes, explosions, and armed assaults as they find themselves on the wrong side of these corrupt lawmen. Bobby does get to have some enjoyable downtime with a seriously sexy woman named Deb (Paula Patton), but that's just a set up for her being kidnapped by the bad guys. And while Bobby and Stig are on the run and showing just who's bad in this squabble, they rank out on one another like friends who aren't friends in between explosions, gunfights, and attacks from angry bulls (no, really).

Watching the "2 Guns" trailer, it's clear what Universal sees as the big marketing hooks – lots of action, and lots of comic byplay between Washington and Wahlberg. From the looks of the preview, both are in in solid shape when it comes to taking punishment and dishing it out, and they bounce dialogue off each other easily, with Washington displaying plenty of cool and Wahlberg playing the edgier and more impulsive half of the equation. The movie's punchy dialogue and cast of heroes play-acting at villains (and vice versa) suggests screenwriter Blake Masters did a fine job of adapting Steven Grant's graphic novel. And director Baltasar Kormakur, an Icelandic filmmaker who won enthusiastic reviews for 2012's "The Deep" (and previously worked with Wahlberg on "Contraband"), keep the pace cracking while giving the material a spin just a bit different than expected. Judging from this preview, "2 Guns" should keep audiences jumping, and Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg make a pretty good team, whether they like it or not. We'll find out if the whole movie lives up to the trailer when it arrives in theaters August 2.