The Other Guys

Posted by christopher on March 21, 2011

The Other Guys is a buddy cop comedy staring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as NYPD detectives Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz. Allen is a practical man; a healthy breakfast, a witty quip on NPR, saving money and the environment with his hybrid vehicle. Terry is by all accounts bi-polar; he’s also driven to succeed, to be the best, and subsequently he’s a bit of a bully. Allen and Terry are partners; an unlikely couple who are exact opposites. Finally, The Other Guys is directed and written in part by Adam McKay, a long time Ferrell partner who’s written and/or directed many of his prior films. With that, and with a long list of high profile names as supporting case, we’ve got a pretty good recipe for a funny movie.

I was cautiously interested in The Other Guys. I was quite looking forward to seeing Wahlberg in a more prominent comedic role. He’s a solid actor who knows a good movie or tv show when he sees one. Ferrell is, well, Ferrell who is capable of making a funny movie, but his goofiness has in many cases been lost in me and the wider audience. But I decided to pull the trigger and give The Other Guys a go.

The best way to describe the movie is that almost every scene is individually entertaining, either being funny or displaying some quite thrilling action (which often are also funny given the over-the-top nature of the shots), however together there lacks a cohesion of each part and so we have a somewhat jumbled mess. It’s like a big ball of snickers, jelly beans, skittles, m&m’s, almond joy, and sour patch kids stuck inside of a red velvet cake with a cream cheese icing with a side of sherbet ice cream; individually all of those sweets are brilliant but together not so much. I was drawn into the movie from the beginning and I laughed throughout, it is just unfortunate that each piece couldn’t be better glued together.

The underlying story itself was a social commentary on the recent market fallout, bailout of banks, and fat cat executive schemes. I commend the film for attempting to provide some transparency to the issue (the credits are paired with rather interesting facts and infographics) while making light of it (something worthwhile itself to help us all just move on). However, again, there were many tangential scenes which really just didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but may have just been too good to leave on the cutting room floor or only provide in extras that will likely be missed by most people. One scene, a brilliant long shot of singular, still images when Allen and Terry go out to drown their sorrows in alcohol, was, well, brilliant but didn’t really add anything beyond itself to the story or characters.

While I don’t think The Other Guys will make it into the mainstream like an Anchorman did, it does provide some similarly funny one-liners that will undoubtedly make me laugh while reminiscing. And like the candy-cake and sherbet, The Other Guys is worth a try at least once because there’s some tasty morsels embedded within.

The Verdict:

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