Review: The Other Guys

When super cops Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson go out in a blaze of...macho stupidity, it is left to the ‘other guys’ to grab the ball and run with it, as it were. Enter Mark Wahlberg, a once promising cop who has been deskbound ever since an embarrassing mishap with a famous American sportsman, and milquetoast Will Ferrell, who is much happier sitting in front of a computer all day as the resident police accountant. The two couldn’t be more different, but now, they need put their differences (and hostility in Wahlberg’s case) aside to work together and crack a case that starts out as just a routine money scheme possibly involving entrepreneur Steve Coogan, but which involves much more widespread corruption. It could be the case that makes them, and restores Wahlberg’s credibility. Eva Mendes plays Ferrell’s seriously hot nurse wife, whose beauty he seems somewhat aggressively dismissive of, much to dumbstruck Wahlberg’s perplexity. Ray Stevenson plays Coogan’s hired muscle, whilst Michael Keaton is the police captain who has a rather unusual second job.

This 2010 buddy cop action/comedy from director/co-writer Adam McKay (Seemingly Will Ferrell’s director of choice, having made the underrated “Anchorman”, the average “Talladega Nights” and the barely tolerable “Step Brothers”) seems to really divide people to a huge degree. People either really love it, or really, really hate it. I’m somewhere in the middle, but far closer to loving it than hating it. That said, I also disliked the slightly similar “Hot Fuzz”, and everyone else loved that, so don’t just take my word for it. What prevented me from loving this one is that in the final twenty minutes in particular, the balance shifted more towards action movie plot stuff, and the film is much better as a comedy than it is an action film. That’s not to mention the fact that the characters played by Johnson and Jackson (isn’t that a company that makes sanitary baby wipes?) are a parody of buddy cop action flicks, so why go ahead and take the plot so seriously towards the end? There’s also not much action per se, so it just seems odd that we’re given so much emphasis on plot when we’ve seen such clichés previously parodied, and there’s no great action to compensate.

Strangely enough, the film still works, just not as well as it might have if the action were more plentiful or the plot more interesting and credible. In fact, it’s still far more consistently funny than most other Will Ferrell vehicles. This is one of Ferrell’s better comedic performances, and his big monologue about tuna and a lion (admittedly started by Wahlberg in similarly hilarious fashion) is one of the funniest moments I can recall in a comedy in the last few years. The rant goes on for so long, getting funnier and funnier, and although started by Wahlberg, Ferrell takes it into weirder territory the longer it goes on. Also hilarious is his back-story as a college pimp named Gator that needs to be seen to be believed. Certainly playing this Charles Grodin-esque milquetoast-y guy is to Ferrell’s advantage, and he puts his own goofy, off-the-wall (bordering on psychedelic) slant on it. But y’know what? I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but Marky Mark damn near steals the show from Ferrell. I know, it’s crazy, right? I’ve never liked Wahlberg’s humourless, minimalist acting style much before this film (“The Departed” being an exception), but here he loosens up like never before. He plays well off the oddball Ferrell’s antics, but his big scene with Mendes (perfectly cast and a good sport) is just a scream, mostly due to Wahlberg’s comic timing. And I never thought I’d hear Mark Wahlberg cry ‘I’m like a peacock you gotta let me fly!’ in a movie, but he does so here and it’s brilliant. Jackson and the former Rocky Maivia are well-cast as super-cops who aren’t as smart as they are cool, but leave the film way too early. I was just starting to really get into their tough guy parody schtick when they got rubbed out altogether. Jackson, in typical angry badass mode gets one of the film’s best lines when he yells at a colleague; ‘Ay, ay, ay! If I wanna hear you talk, I'll shove my arm up your ass and work your mouth like a puppet!’. Brit comedian Coogan is such a bland and underdeveloped villain that it’s such a shame the film goes into more serious action movie plot mode towards the end (despite not really setting the plot up all that well early on), because Coogan isn’t interesting, amusing, or remotely threatening (He’s as menacing as Eric Idle, if you ask me). I guess Americans might receive the financial-scheming plot more warmly, but it didn’t do much for me. And was Stevenson trying for an Aussie accent? Epic Fail. To be quite generous, it sounded somewhere between cockney and Seth Effriken (Just listen to how he pronounces the name Kylie Minogue. No way is that an Aussie pronunciation). Nice to see cinema’s best-ever Bruce Wayne, Michael Keaton on screen as the long-suffering police captain who frequently (inadvertently?) references TLC lyrics. The role is small, but the guy’s a great talent.

It’s a solid film, and as a comedy it’s certainly very funny, which is really the point, isn’t it? I just wish the film had more yuks towards the end (or more action throughout), or found a funnier (or at least more imposing) villain than the lame Coogan. I’m glad that McKay and his fellow writer Chris Henchy (who wrote the Ferrell-ised remake of “Land of the Lost”) tried something that isn’t just a clothesline for a string of gags, but the plot just isn’t interesting enough to warrant such emphasis. It’s certainly one of the better buddy cop flicks of the last decade or so (and hey, it’s actually better than some of the 80s ones like “Tango & Cash”, for instance), faint praise or not. How can you not laugh at a film that dares to have two characters debate the realism in “Star Wars” right after a big explosion nearly kills them?

Rating: B-