The Other Guys

Alright I’ll keep this quick.

‘The Other Guys’, I almost didn’t rent it because it got shitty reviews. I didn’t follow my own rule about giving anything that has potential a chance, until a friend said he really liked it. Of course this same friend was walking out of the store with a ‘Ninja Assassin’ knock off and ‘Death Race 2’. But I remembered I had similar feeling about another Will Ferrell movie, ‘Step Brothers’, and I laughed my ass off for a good chunk of that film. So I picked up ‘The Other Guys’ and found myself laughing even harder and more often.

Will Ferrell and Marky Mark star in this buddy cop film that despite setting it self up to make fun of buddy cops films, fails to make fun of buddy cop films. However, it manages to make fun of every other cop movie in existence. Mark Wahlberg plays a cop itching for a big case, while Ferrell is his partner who would rather sit a file paper work. But when a simple permit violation arrest drops these two in the middle of dangerous position, they both must step to crack the case and stay alive. Its not a great story line, but it serves to set up some very entertaining moments.

Ferrell’s character is very reminiscent of Frank The Tank who he played in ‘Old School’, typically this is something I would bitch about but it works here. It works because Samuel L. Jackson stops by to make fun of Shaft, Dwayne Johnson is playing who I assume is his old WWE personality The Rock, and Wahlberg is playing the same character he’s played in every movie. The humor in the movie works because they are making fun of them selves as much as they are making fun of other cop movies.

Funny man Will Ferrell doesn’t get as many laughs in this movie as he typically would, but he still gets some chuckles in his old outlandish way. Most of the giggles come when Ferrell sets up the jokes and the typically serious Wahlberg knocks them out of the park. Two week points of this movie were the police captain played by Michael Keaton and the shady invester played by Steve Coogan. Its not that they did a bad job, I just don’t feel the director knew what to do with them.

If the plot had been a little stronger this movie could have rivaled ‘Old School’ as one of the best Will Ferrell movies. This movie is made even funnier if you have seen a lot of cop movies, and a lot of Wahlberg movies, or are just very familiar with the tropes used in action flicks. But without knowing much about other movies the laughs are all still there. If you like Will Ferrell’s work you will enjoy this allot, if you don’t then you still have Wahlberg to laugh at. And if you laughed you ass off at the scene in ‘The Departed’ where Alec Baldwin and Wahlberg are ripping on each others mothers, I’ll say that you don’t want to miss this.