The sun was beaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows at New York's Mandarin Oriental hotel when its human competition, A-listers Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg entered the room for the '2 Guns' press conference. The stars of the action-packed, buddy comedy have just as much chemistry off-set as they do in the film, laughing and finishing each other's sentences throughout the presser. Washington joked that he and Wahlberg "went to Lamaze together" to bond. 

"Mark's a good guy, he's a regular guy like me. He's just good people,"  Washington said. "A church-going family man," Wahlberg chimed in.  "He hasn't lost his way," Washington finished.

But the light-hearted press event turned a bit serious when EBONY.com asked about the film's seemingly strong criticism of the U.S. government's drug and immigration policies and methods of enforcement–or lack there of. When I pointed out the scene where Washington's character, Bobby B., has to save a Mexican immigrant from drowning as they make their way across the treacherous U.S. border,  Washington said, "I didn’t think about [it like] that."

"My wife and I went and saw Fruitvale Station last night. Oh, man! [2 Guns] ain't that!" he laughed. "Now there’s some messages. I mean, wow.

"I did tear up–at an interesting point, too. Somewhere between the girlfriend’s reaction and the mother’s reaction [to Oscar Grant’s death], somewhere in there at the end. But talking to my oldest daughter [about ‘Fruitvale’] and for her (I’m getting political now) that and the [George] Zimmerman trial, this is the first time we’ve dealt with these issues in her lifetime. She was too young for Rodney King and she studied [the] Civil Rights [Movement], but she said for our generation [these were] the first events and I thought wow, that’s interesting."

'2 Guns' opens in theaters everywhere today and stars Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg and Paula Patton.

By Brooke Obie