Will Ferrell and his longtime partner director Adam McKay are responsible for the popular Web site FunnyOrDie.com. Every two years they’ve made movies together that have been less and less consistently funny and increasingly predictive of Ferrell’s big-screen death. (2004’s “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” 2006’s “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” 2008’s “Step Brothers”)
“The Other Guys”
3 out of 5 stars
Stars: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes
Director: Adam McKay
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language, violence and some drug material.
Running time: 107 minutes
But by collaborating with other guys for the mostly amusing “The Other Guys” Ferrell breaks free of his “Har-de-har-har, I’m an idiot” routine. He doesn’t just throw a hundred gags at the wall and hope his shtick sticks. In today’s buddy action comedy opposite Mark Wahlberg, the aging clown plays a fully conceived character in an engaging story that works both because of and apart from its sight gags, laugh lines and antic car chases.
The two stars play mismatched NYPD detectives. They are loser desk jockeys who get a chance to redeem themselves on the street when a big case falls in their laps. The script has more bite and wit than the usual Ferrell-McKay fare thanks, probably, to the contributions of co-writer/executive producer Chris Henchy. Aside from helping to create FunnyOrDie.com, Henchy helped Wahlberg conceive and produce the HBO hit “Entourage.”
Ostensibly nerdy, Ferrell’s Allen Gamble is a mild-mannered forensic accountant for the police department. But he has an unlikely past as a pimp and a weirdly, impossibly hot wife (Eva Mendes). This mystifies his hothead partner Terry Hoitz, who is full of hostility after accidentally shooting Yankee Derek Jeter and losing his rep over it. Wahlberg rages hilariously as Terry. He parodies the parody Andy Samberg has been doing of him on “Saturday Night Live” since 2008.
Together, the hapless pair attempts to prove the criminal shenanigans of a Madofflike figure (Steve Coogan) while fending off a team of gun-toting mercenaries led by fierce stud Ray Stevenson of HBO’s “Rome.” Allen’s inner “gangsta” and Terry’s new relaxation — after a period on the traffic beat — help them in their efforts.
In support, Michael Keaton gets a welcome chance to brandish his trademark comic timing on screen again as the boys’ precinct captain. Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have a couple of entertaining early scenes satirizing the stereotype of the rock-star cops we too often see in Hollywood buddy movies.
And somehow, the offbeat alchemy of Ferrell’s silliness with Wahlberg’s danger subvert the genre cliches.
