Eva Mendes, Ray Stevenson and (especially) Steve Coogan also offer worthwhile support in their respective roles. Plus there’s Michael Keaton stealing damn near every scene his pressure-cooker police chief appears in. Jackson and Johnson breeze through with a knowingly brazen arrogance signifying that they’re The Heroes, Goddammit.
The film also benefits from a terrifically game cast. the lunatic indestructibility of Ferrell’s Prius). If it indulges in the conventions of the buddy-cop genre, it’s only to tweak them for maximum hilarity-even the action-heavy climax is somewhat deflated of its bombastic nature by sidelong chuckles and absurd touches (i.e. Kevin Smith’s Cop Out covered a good deal of this ground earlier this year, but where the affectionate joshery of that film made it feel like the genuine article, The Other Guys makes no bones about being foremost a genre piss-take. Already, the framework of a mismatched buddy-cop comedy from the ‘80s is evident, with Wahlberg as the fuming straight man and Ferrell as the quirky main attraction. This basic clash of contrasting personalities leads to a number of explosively funny moments: I knew the film had me helpless in its grasp when, after Wahlberg vents at Ferrell, the latter fires back unexpectedly with a long, increasingly deranged monologue about the dangerous nature of tuna fish. Ferrell couldn’t be happier about this, and his contentment further aggravates Wahlberg’s caged alpha male. Jackson & Dwayne Johnson, these two get the glory and the thrill of tearing apart city blocks to catch perps while Ferrell and Wahlberg are left to shuffle the paperwork necessitated by the former pair’s extravagantly destructive shenanigans. They, like their co-workers, live in the shadow of cock-of-the-walk action heroes, celebrity cops of the precinct. The titular pairing, indeed, is a stereotypical Odd Couple set-up, with Ferrell as the meek, proud desk jockey and Mark Wahlberg as his frustrated, seething hotshot of a partner. The Other Guys, Ferrell’s latest collaboration with writer/director Adam McKay, is a strong vehicle for Ferrell in that it thrives on the comedic possibilities of that dichotomy, of the space between the unassuming and the uncontrolled. When cut loose, Ferrell’s flailings provide nothing more than an embarrassing release valve, and it’s this disconnect between the intent and the effect that equals comic gold. The man’s hallmark is a barely concealed rage what sets his fury apart from that of his former SNL castmate Adam Sandler is that his is an ineffectual one. The slightest upset can send them off into fits of howling anger or surrealistic verbiage. Whether macho man or milquetoast, Ferrell’s characters are tied to each other by the carefully-arranged and precise lives they lead, and by their adverse reaction to shifts in those lives. I prefer to think of his as a coherent body of work.
Will Ferrell is a very funny guy who has been accused of doing a certain type, a type he falls into easily, too often.