Can somebody make Kevin Smith watch The Other Guys? Because he needs to learn a thing or two, and a few months after his disastrously bad Cop Out, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have arrived to teach him. This is how a cop comedy should be done – silly and absurd, and with a plot that isn’t just a lazy riff on a thousand well-worn cop tropes (although it does hit a couple of those). 

Will Ferrell is a straight arrow desk jockey cop who wants no excitement at all. He’s happy to spend his days doing everybody else’s paperwork, while his partner, Mark Wahlberg, is stuck with him after accidentally shooting Derek Jeter at a Yankees game. Wahlberg seethes impotently as Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson, playing supercops, get all the attention, cases and pussy.
But circumstances bring these two onto a legitimate case, and things gets serious pretty quickly. The police procedural aspect of The Other Guys isn’t the joy of the film, and thankfully the movie never makes too much of it. Rather it’s a spine from which the meat of the comedy hangs, and the spine itself is willing to make long and odd detours in order to find the best opportunities to be funny. The Other Guys isn’t as absurdist as Step Brothers, but it is very willing to get very wacky.
Ferrell changes up his persona here; dropping the overly confident schtick he’s done with McKay before, this time he’s a guy who is just trying to be as boring as possible, due to a hilariously sketchy past. There is no actor who plays clueless as well as Farrell, and here he mixes it with an overly willful squareness that creates comedy magic. He’s the straight man in the partnership, but he’s the source of just about every major laugh in the film.
Wahlberg is… lesser. My biggest complaint about the movie, and what held it back from real greatness for me (on first viewing. McKay’s movies tend to grow on repeat viewings) is that he’s so stiff and uncomfortable. He often makes the film feel like an SNL skit writ large, one of those sketches where the main cast is fluid and comfortable and has great timing while the guest is staring at cue cards the entire time. He doesn’t belong in the movie. My friend and fellow movie critic Todd Gilchrist insists that’s the entire point, and I’ll say that Todd has a compelling argument, but on a single viewing I found Wahlberg to often be a millstone around Farrell’s neck, sucking the energy out of scenes – thankfully Ferrell is more than up to the task of generating more and more energy as required.


Which isn’t to say that Wahlberg is terrible. He has some moments that really work, but it’s just so clear that he is woefully out of his league, especially when up against some of the supporting cast, like a delightfully weaselly Steve Coogan (whose bribery attempts with Broadway tickets led to one of my favorite absurdist gags) and a top of his form Michael Keaton as the partner’s frustrated boss. Keaton is gold in this movie, moving in and out and always leaving a huge swath of laughs in his wake. 

Some folks have expressed surprise or disappointment that The Other Guys is a PG-13 film – do they realize that Anchorman was as well? McKay is a master at getting right to the edge of that rating and making you forget that you’re watching a movie that’s not a hardcore R. There’s not a single moment in The Other Guys that feels pulled back, no punches that feel pulled. In fact, I’d argue that when forced to work within a PG-13 restriction, McKay and his group really rise to the occasion, finding weird and crazy jokes rather than simply filthy ones. Anyone can drop the F bomb everywhere, but not everyone can come up with a running gag about homeless men having orgies in Will Ferrell’s car. In a PG-13 movie.

He also works in lots of subtle political content. This is a film about the economic collapse, believe it or not, and the end credits make that very explicit. McKay is interested in making you laugh, but he always wants to have something to say. I’d argue that all of his films so far have been like that, whether you noticed it or not, but this is the most in your face – and even then it’s fairly laid back about its politics. McKay is, in my opinion, the very best comedy director working today, and watching him grow and evolve with The Other Guys is a pleasure.

It’s frustrating to review a movie like this on a lot of levels – the comedy is the comedy, and it has to be experienced to be understood. I can tell you that the laughs come almost constantly throughout the picture, but that doesn’t really sum up the way that McKay expertly engineers the pacing of the picture, knowing when to let you catch your breath before sending you into another fit of laughter. And it’s frustrating because McKay’s films truly need to be experienced multiple times – I liked Anchorman the first time I saw it, but it wasn’t until the fourth or fifth that I realized it was simply one of the best comedy movies ever made, taking a spot alongside Duck Soup, Young Frankenstein and Airplane!. So I’ll be heading to the theater again this weekend, plunking down my hard-earned gelt to sit and laugh through The Other Guys again. And Kevin Smith, if you’re reading this – come along, I’ll buy your ticket. But bring a notepad, because you’re getting schooled.

8.5 out of 10