Movie Review: “The Other Guys”

New York City’s testosterone-charged detective team Christopher Danson (Dwayne Johnson) and P. K. Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) takes car chases and excessive property damage to a whole other level. Especially when you realize it’s all in pursuit of a single ounce of marijuana. The duo is not only ridiculously hysterical, they’re also completely misleading.
They’re not the other guys referred to in the title, but their Michael Bay-style explosions followed by soundbite-worthy press conferences allow the pair to steal the opening of the movie. Unfortunately, after falling to their deaths because of their own hubris, it’s time to say goodbye to character chemistry and hello to the real other guys.
Will Ferrell plays New York City Police accountant Allen Gamble, who’s basically Buddy the Elf in glasses, but with a pimp alter-ego named Gator. Whether his gun has been replaced by a rape whistle or his Toyota Prius has been turned into a shelter for an orgy of homeless people, the guy is more comfortable behind his government-issued desk, where he can safely tell the rest of the team to start their day with a smile.
His partner, Terry Hoitz, is played by Mark Wahlberg, who seems to be doing a satire of himself in “The Departed.” From shout-talking every word that comes out of his mouth to spouting senseless one-liners about being a peacock that needs to be allowed to fly, his character can be funny, but also so familiar he borders on predictable.
Each is pathetic in his own way, and it’s the perfect set-up for a buddy cop farce flick. In fact, the biggest disappointment of “The Other Guys” is that Wahlberg and Ferrell don’t have the chemistry I was really hoping for. They seem like a true odd couple out of character, but something about Hoitz and Gamble on screen together is a miss. Individually, they’re funny, but their jokes sail past each other without successfully riffing.
And while Ferrell and Wahlberg’s performances are reminiscent of their past roles, the film “The Other Guys” seems to be reminiscent of several other cop parodies. Straddling the not-so-fine line between an action-packed “Bad Boys II” satire and a rehashing of Dan Aykroyd’s snarky detective parody “Dragnet,” “The Other Guys” fluctuates in tone and plot. The overall effect is that the film lacks any real identity or tone that could give the film the consistency necessary to mask the lack of plot.
That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t accomplish what it sets out to do. It makes its audience laugh as most comedies should. There were some great running bits, such as Captain Gene quoting TLC for inspiration and the sequence chronicling Gamble’s descent into the pimp world. I can’t say I didn’t laugh, and by golly, “The Other Guys” deserves every laugh it did get from me.
However, the laughs were sporadic and a little shallow. They were more like chuckles than those deep belly laughs that Ferrell is notorious for generating. Many of the jokes would have been funnier if I wasn’t conscious of paying $12 to hear them. In fact, the best way to describe “The Other Guys” is as a Redbox or Netflix rental. It’s a surprising treat when it’s practically free; otherwise, you might end up resenting the experience.

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