Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington successfully slide into buddy cop mode in the entertainingly slick if not formulaic 2 Guns.

Here is an example of movies influencing comic books influencing movies, for while 2 Guns is based on the Boom! Studios graphic novel of the same name this is pure buddy action moviemaking from the school of Shane Black (Lethal Weapon): witty, with plenty of gratuitous violence and two charismatic actors up front trading barbs while blowing shit up.

This is by no means a bad thing, even if it has been done a million times before. Yet it’s the first pairing of Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington (two charismatic actors of different styles) and the entertaining, quote heavy screenplay from Blake Masters that makes it work so well.

Wahlberg and Washington star as Michael “Stig” Stigman and Bobby Trench, drug smugglers who unbeknownst to each other are in fact undercover military and DEA (respectively). When an authorised heist goes wrong they have to fend off every gun from the drug cartels to the CIA, while also learning to re-trust one another.

These buddy action films are all about the interplay between its leads. Here the combined powers of Wahlberg and Washington not only gives star wattage to the marquee, but it also an interesting experiment in coupling megastars with different, distinct styles who mesh so well that it feels more like their fourth collaboration than their first.

Wahlberg is especially good, entertainingly playing a smart arse punk who can back what his mouth is spouting, that “say hello to your mother for me” street brat vibe bouncing off Washington’s badass super-fly persona. Wahlberg gets Masters’ best lines and delivers them well.

2 Guns marks Wahlberg’s second collaboration with Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur (the first being 2012 action/thriller Contraband). Where the transition from European cinema to Hollywood has left many a foreign filmmaker in a twirl, Kormakur has fit in rather nicely by not stretching boundaries. Guns, puns, some great one liners and T &A (courtesy of a game Paula Patton) is the winning formula here.

2 Guns probably won’t rank amongst the great buddy action films, but it sure is a strong contender.