So, I accidentally watched this movie. Accidentally? How is that possible? A coworker told me he purchased THE OTHER GUYS and I thought he was talking about THE LOSERS, which I'd heard was good. He offered to lend it to me, and only when he brought it in did I realize I misunderstood. I didn't want to hurt his feelings after he'd talked about how good it was, so I took it home and watched it while I did some other stuff. It is the first Farrell movie I've seen since STRANGER THAN FICTION
My thoughts: It is not very good. But... it's not good in surprising ways. I expected Whalberg to be crack me up from moment one, given his HUCKABEES work. Instead, because he was appearing in a Farrell movie perhaps, he felt the need to act manic and out of control from the first frame. He never seemed like a believable person. He was always shouting something crazy or making googly eyes. That isn't funny to me. What's funny is a sincere, slightly dumb guy saying absurd things that seem like they could be something a real person would actually utter. You know, like in Huckabees. Whalberg didn't get that, and ended up being grating and leaden for the whole thing
Farrell.. I expected him to be terrible. I've written about him on the board before, and while I ironically thought he made an OK dramatic actor in STRANGER THAN FICTION, his obnoxious habit of mugging for the camera while he stretches every joke out to the point where any humor has been physically wrung from the scene makes him someone who I cannot stand under any conditions
An example? The tuna thing. Whalberg's delivery of the initial lion hunting set up was too forced and fake to seem funny to me, but when Farrell cleverly turned it around and pointed out that waves off the cape of Africa are 20 feet high and a blue fin tuna can weight 800lbs, ETC, I thought it was great. His character was believably clueless, thinking that he could turn the insult around on Whalberg and really "burn" him by pointing out the illogical nature of his threat... but then Farrell started talking about Kelp oxygen masks. The smile immediately left my face. No one in their right mind would say stuff like that, and so the reality of the joke, that this guy was trying to use logic to invalidate a lion v tuna attack scenario, was lost and it just became about random weirdness.. that went on and on and on till I was gritting my teeth
Weirdly enough though? The moments where he restrained himself and acted slightly more down to earth got me to smile and even giggle a few times. This is unheard of for me with Will Farrell
An example? When Captain Gene says that the DA who was just in his office was very powerful and never comes down to the station, Farrell misinterprets the nature of the Captains comment and says "And he was sitting right here" with a dumb smile on his face, as if he was awed that such a powerful individual would stop by the office
To me, that is funny
Random shit is not clever. It's just random. Farrell singing old timey sailing songs in a bar? Amusing that his character has such an outmoded hobby, and perhaps even chuckle worthy on a good day. Farrell singing "and the children got pink eye and their Harry Potter books were burned"? Gag me. Why would people in a bar be singing that? It makes no sense. I am fine with absurdism (I love STELLA, for instance) but Farrell inserts it into situations where the plot needs to have SOME grounding in reality in order for anything to make sense or carry emotional weight, and it ends up sabotaging the film
At least until the script inexplicably changed his character to be goofy and friendly (when Farrell and Whalberg meet up with him at his night job), Keaton was the funniest thing the movie had going for it. He was trying to deal with outlandish characters in a straight, realistic way. His line about "It's not 'Captain Gene', I don't have a kiddy show' felt real, and was hysterical. His speech at BED BATH AND BEYOND, "well, don't ignore it if you life in Crown Heights, obviously", is the height of intelligent humor IMHO
The rest of the film seemed determined to kill that vibe though. Why would Whalberg, a supposedly serious career cop, say that "EVERYTHING IN STAR WARS IS REAL!". Is it just to be "weird" and therefore funny? That's not funny to me, because it's not real to his character or what anyone in that situation would conceivably say. The stuff about internal damage? Funny. "STAR WARS IS REAL"? Not funny
As for the much ballyhooed jump with the Rock? It WOULD have been funny for me, but it was poorly shot. The best I got from it was an after the fact quiet chuckle once I realized what the movie had done. Because the director never clearly established the geography of the scene, I didn't know that the bushes they were trying to jump for were hundreds of feet away. Instead of laughing their whole way down, I just watched confused till they struck, and then the pay off consisted for me of merely "Oh, I see. They died from a foolish jump. Ha"
The best thing in the entire film was Ray Stevenson, whose visible annoyance with the stupidity of the characters around him was very amusing. His speech about Kiley Minogue was delightful, and he brought a real world hardened edge that help counterbalance the otherwise unhinged nonsense on display. Additionally his Australian accent and cool character name (Roger Wesley) ensured I'd watch till the end credits. I was planning to turn it off and then he showed up, and I knew I had to at least watch the rest to see him in action
In conclusion, Farrell needs to work with someone with more sense than McKay, someone who can reign in his worse tendencies and get him to focus his abilities. I see Farrell as a Jim Carey like figure, only without any worthwhile funny or dramatic flicksto his name. He seems like a guy who just endlessly ad libs on set and then expects the editor to cut together his stream of consciousness "brilliance" into a coherent film. It's a Sisyphean undertaking, and I don't envy those tasked with shaping the raw footage
So yeah, glad I saw it for Stevenson/Keaton, ultimately. The rest was not funny enough to be worthwhile on it's own, and until I suffer another freak memory accident, I'll be steering clear of Will Farrell for the foreseeable future
PS Steve Coogan was funny. His stuff with the tickets and his bribes felt realistic yet absurd, so again it made me laugh
PPS: Farrell screaming about "Gator" etc? Oh god, are there people who actually enjoy this guy doing his schick? It's just painful IMHO
