Leigh Paatsch’s weekend movie guide: 2 Guns, Metallica and Diana

WITH the weekend nearly upon us, time short and choices aplenty, let Leigh Paatsch’s movie guide point you in the right direction.

WITH the weekend nearly upon us, time short and choices aplenty, let Leigh Paatsch’s movie guide point you in the right direction for a great film movie experience.

2 Guns (MA) Blazing away with both bent barrels

It’s the banter that goes off with a bang ... Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington in

If Quentin Tarantino was contractually obliged to do a boilerplate Bad Boys-style action movie, 2 Guns is what would happen. While the bullets are in plentiful supply throughout, it is the banter that really goes off with a bang here. When you have actors of the calibre of Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg taking careful aim with some well-written verbal potshots, a so-so action picture can fleetingly become so, so good. Conceptually, this is one of those knotted crime yarns where nothing is ever what it seems, and no-one is ever to be trusted. In fact, the screenplay executes so many sudden U-turns in heavy narrative traffic that there is almost no point in summarising the plot. Just think, Mexico, drug dealers, corrupt cops, and connect the dots from there. A brash burst of guilty-pleasure escapism, instantly in-your-face and then just as soon off-your-mind.

Read Leigh Paatsch’s 2 Guns review in full

{General release}

Metallica: Through the Never 3D (M) Loud, proud and unbowed

There have been a stack of Metallica concert films in the past, and no doubt there’s a pile yet to be made. Metallica: Through the Never, however, just might go down in heavy metal history as the one to see above all others. Spectacularly filmed in 3D, Through the Never plugs into Metallica at the peak of their powers during their 2012 world tour. The playing is beyond tight, the set list showcases the best of their repertoire, and frontman James Hetfield is in the best vocal form heard from him in years. Only the one drawback here: a duff fictional subplot about a young roadie on a mysterious mission for the band.

This will never be One Direction ... A scene from Nimrod Antal's Metallica Through The Never 3D. Picture: Supplied

Read Leigh Paatsch’s Metallica: Through the Never 3D review in full

{General release}

Diana (M) No way to treat a princess

Diana starts and ends with the moments leading up to the tragic death of the late Diana Spencer in a traffic tunnel in Paris. And in between? A biopic as dozy and dimwitted as a mis-told life story on screen can get. A lot of the juicy stuff that veteran Diana-philes will be thirsting for has been squeezed right out of the script. What they’ll get instead is Naomi Watts blushing her way through a fairly dull (and occasionally, unintentionally comical) tale of Diana’s secret love affair with London-based Pakistani heart surgeon Haznat Khan (played by Naveen Andrews). Any time the watery-willed Diana floats anywhere near this doctorly dreamboat, the diagnosis is a terminal case of true love forever, with some side-symptoms of Mills & Boon syndrome.

Di-re ... Naomi Watts as Diana, Princess of Wales, in the film Diana

Read Leigh Paatsch’s Diana review in full

{General release.}