NYC cops Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are the bumbling other guys to the regular cowboys in the bullpen, personified by Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson. Ferrell is a prissy poindexter and Wahlberg shot Derek Jeter in the thigh (an apparent no-no in NYC). Ferrell and director Adam McKay’s indulgent, risque fly-paper narrative approach sometimes yields benefits, but The Other Guys doesn’t have enough focus or coherence to elevate set-ups that flirt with misogynism and homophobia into punchlines with a firm point of view. In the Ferrell-McKay canon, this is a two-hander like Step Brothers, and like that movie, is somewhat a race-to-the-bottom towards the characters’ ultimate despicability. These two are capable of sublime stupidity, but are also occasional perpetrators of American comedy’s nihilistic tendencies.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.