Riggs and Murtaugh. Tango and Cash. Add Hoitz and Gamble to the buddy cop pantheon.
The Other Guys opens in true action film fashion with a rousing car chase through the streets of New York City as top cops, Danson (Dwayne Johnson) and Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson), run down the perpetrators. A massive amount of property damage is done to bring in a few crooks possessing a miniscule amount of marijuana. Back at the station house, Danson and Highsmith are greeted with a hero’s welcome. None of the accolades are thrown the way of Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell). They don’t blow shit up, they don’t get the girls, nor do they make the big arrests.
Hoitz could be doing those things, if not for an embarrassing shooting mishap, which relegated him to desk duty. His partner, Gamble, is a forensic accountant who gleefully enjoys paperwork and has no desire to see any action in the field. While investigating a minor oversight in construction permits, Gamble and Hoitz uncover a Bernie Madoff-style plot by millionaire mogul David Ershon (Steve Coogan) to embezzle $32 billion.
The main cast also features Michael Keaton as the precinct captain who moonlights as the manager of a Bed Bath and Beyond, Eva Mendes as Gamble’s inexplicably hot wife, Ray Stevenson as an Australian mercenary, and an uncredited Anne Heche as a corrupt CEO employing Ershon.
The Other Guys is the fourth collaboration between director Adam McKay and Will Ferrell following Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Other Guys isn’t as hilarious as the first two films, but it’s several notches above the somewhat crass Step Brothers. As a spoof of buddy cop films, it works better than Kevin Smith’s Cop Out. However, the genre has become such a self-parody of itself that McKay is simply beating a dead horse. Seeing Wahlberg in a slow-mo John Woo shootout isn’t as funny as it should be because the gag has been done to death.
Where the film excels is in the interactions between the lead actors. Wahlberg has given some terribly wooden performances recently in The Happening and The Lovely Bones. He’s better suited for action and comedy and he’s excellent as the hotheaded straight man. Ferrell’s idiot man-child routine wears thin so he wisely tones it down for Other Guys. There’s a slow burn for his character as they slowly reveal the darker side he’s hidden.
McKay tops it off with his own brand of absurdist humor displayed in many hysterical gags sprinkled throughout the film. Some of the funniest bits include: Coogan bribing our heroes with tickets to Jersey Boys, a run-in with a group of horny hobos led by a fellow named Dirty Mike (played by McKay himself), an ending credits sequence utilizing Powerpoint-style animation to explain Ponzi schemes and government bailouts, and Ferrell constantly being hit on by gorgeous women like Brooke Shields (wife of co-writer Chris Henchy).
Rating: ***
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