Denzel Washington & Mark Wahlberg's 2013 Action Comedy Gets Second Life On Prime Video

Denzel Washington is one of the most accomplished actors in Hollywood history, and a rare example of a star who has maintained a commitment to challenging roles that showcase his unique talent. He was outstanding in Joel Coen's 2021 expressionist nightmare "The Tragedy of Macbeth" and in a 2016 adaptation of August Wilson's "Fences," which, while it was a flop, remains Denzel's favorite movie role. But we'd all be kidding ourselves if we didn't acknowledge our insatiable appetite for watching Denzel Washington punch and shoot his way through an action movie.

The veteran star has proved his ability to hand out beatdowns even as a 70-year-old with his "Equalizer" trilogy. But Washington also has some lesser-known action outings that, while not quite as viscerally satisfying as his "Equalizer" movies (or Tony Scott's "Man on Fire"), are still a heck of a lot of fun.

Take "2 Guns," for example. This 2013 buddy cop actioner saw Denzel team up with Mark Wahlberg for a perfectly entertaining movie that was somewhat overlooked. It saw Washington play DEA Special Agent Robert "Bobby Beans" Trench opposite Wahlberg's U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer "Stig" Stigman, both of whom are undercover and both of whom are none the wiser as to their partner's true identity. The movie wasn't exactly a mega-hit, but it made a decent amount at the box office, even if critics weren't ecstatic. Thankfully, the film is getting another chance over on Prime Video, where "2 Guns" has made it into the most-watched films chart.

Directed by Baltasar Kormákur, who previously directed Wahlberg in 2012's "Contraband," "2 Guns" is based on the comic book series of the same name by Steven Grant and Mateus Santolouco. It follows Bobby Trench and Marcus Stigman, who infiltrate a narcotics syndicate as undercover agents. Neither realize that the other is an undercover agent, but after they're both abandoned by their respective agencies, they have to work together to survive.

That seems to be a formula for streaming success, since just six months after "2 Guns" became a Netflix hit, it has now managed to crack the Prime Video charts. The movie hit Amazon's streaming service on April 1, 2025 and according to FlixPatrol, a site that tracks streaming viewership data across the various platforms, charted as of April 19, 2025. It might have taken a little while, then, but Prime Video subscribers have finally unearthed this forgotten Denzel actioner, sending it to number six on the U.S. film charts on April 19.

Since then, "2 Guns" has slowly fallen through the rankings, hitting number seven on April 17 before falling to number nine on April 22. For now, that looks about as well as the movie will do on Prime Video, but considering it came out more than a decade ago, that's not a bad little resurgence. The question is, is "2 Guns" actually worthy of revisiting?

Despite the streaming success of "2 Guns" stateside, it hasn't managed to crack the worldwide Prime Video top 10 yet, and it doesn't look like it will now that its brief renaissance appears to be coming to an end. However, it might be able to hold onto a place in the U.S. top 10 if the new number one Prime Video movie starring Homelander actor Antony Starr doesn't put an end to its run. Otherwise, "2 Guns" has Tom Cruise's "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" to contend with, which has risen four spots overnight from April 22 to April 23, suggesting Cruise's appeal as author Lee Child's action hero isn't quite as non-existent as hardcore fans of the book series originally claimed. Meanwhile James McAvoy's twisted 2024 horror "Speak No Evil" continues to be a Prime Video hit almost two weeks after it originally hit the charts.

All of which doesn't exactly bode well for "2 Guns," which looks like it might be on its way out of the Prime Video rankings. I would say the film's 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes isn't going to help, either, but we've seen much, much worse dominate these charts before. Still, critics were sort of lukewarm on this Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg team-up, which made $132.3 million on a $61 million budget. That's not a terrible theatrical run, though The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wasn't too impressed, summing the film up thusly: "Not much firepower." Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine, however, surmised that "2 Guns" was "what some summer movies should be like — clever in a stupid way, and stupid in a clever way." I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not, but Rotten Tomatoes certainly thinks it is. As such, you could do a lot worse with your streaming viewing tonight.