The Other Guys (2010)Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson
I met up with a good mate I hadn't seen for a few weeks to see a movie. There wasn't a great deal on that interested us so it came down to Polanski's The Ghost Writer and the new McKay/Ferrell collaboration The Other Guys. The selection was then left in the hands of the Hoyts schedule and The Other Guys presented much more favourable times.
Everyone at the NYPD lives in the shadows of detectives Highsmith (Jackson) and Danson (Johnson). They are the baddest most beloved crime fighting duo in New York City. A couple of desks over at the station sit Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg). They are the other guys. Gamble doesn't particularly like taking risks so prefers to devote himself to his paperwork. Hoitz has all the ambition to be a hero, but his career has been stunted by an incident in which he accidentally shot baseballer Derek Jeter during the World Series, costing his city the title. When Highsmith and Danson are both killed in the line of duty New York is crying out for new heroes and before they know it, the seemingly insignificant case that Gamble has been working on, involving scaffolding permit violations, leads them all the way to multi-millionaire investor Daniel Ershon (Coogan) and becomes the highest profile case in the city.
I'll admit I have gone a bit cold on Will Ferrell over the last few years, as it appears most people have. Anchorman was brilliant, Talladega Nights was disappointing, Blades of Glory showed promise, Semi-Pro was the worst film I had seen in a number of years and as a result I didn't bother seeing Step Brothers. It didn't help Ferrell's cause that at the same time as his shtick was starting to feel a bit stale the Judd Apatow crew really took off with The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad and Knocked Up all kicking goals. The Other Guys is, however, a step in the right direction. The semi-improvisational comedy style is a bit hit and miss as it always is (the whole back story about Ferrell's character being a pimp in college I could have done without), but generally it's more up than down.
The film had a really interesting cast, which is really what peaked my interest. It was great to finally see Will Ferrell playing a different character. His character in The Other Guys is a slightly repressed nerd, much more like the character he played in Stranger than Fiction than the wailing, screaming man-child we are used to seeing him play. Whalberg has his moments playing a kind of pathetic version of his character Dignam from The Departed. The two aren't quite a natural match, there isn't a real spark there, but they bounce off each other alright. The supporting cast is where the action is though. Steve Coogan, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne "Don't call me The Rock, I'm an actor now" Johnson, Eva Mendes and, the highlight of the bunch, Michael Keaton, who it is great to see back on the big screen generally, and in comedy specifically.
McKay and Ferrell have fun playing with the very well established conventions of the buddy-cop movie, and get some good laughs out of it. The over the top hero-cops Highsmith and Danson are great, in particular the way they meet their demise is quite funny. In general, though, The Other Guys is not nearly as clever as Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz or even, for Australians, Tony Martin's often maligned Bad Eggs.
One thing which did leave my a bit confused was the final credit sequence for the film. While the credits where running there were animations on the screen which included all sorts of statistics about white collar/corporate crime, Bernie Madoff, embezzlement, etc. It seemed to suggest that the filmmakers believed that The Other Guys had made some sort of serious statement about white collar crime, but that is not at all the impression I had got while watching the film. The specific details of the crime that Coogan's character had committed hardly seemed to be highlighted in such a way as to promote moral outrage. If McKay and his team are of the belief that in The Other Guys they had achieved biting satire which made valuable social commentary, I think they might be slightly overestimating what they have produced. The film is reasonably funny, but hardly profound and you don't walk out of the cinema feeling more aware of a certain issue.
If you're a Will Ferrell fan you'll probably find that the constraints of the buddy-cop genre restrict him too much. If you aren't a Will Ferrell fan you'll probably feel there are still a few too many moments where he reverts to playing a wailing man-child. I sit somewhere in between the two. The Other Guys is not the best film Ferrell has made, but it is also far from the worst. It will make you laugh, but it's not hugely memorable.
I'll admit I have gone a bit cold on Will Ferrell over the last few years, as it appears most people have. Anchorman was brilliant, Talladega Nights was disappointing, Blades of Glory showed promise, Semi-Pro was the worst film I had seen in a number of years and as a result I didn't bother seeing Step Brothers. It didn't help Ferrell's cause that at the same time as his shtick was starting to feel a bit stale the Judd Apatow crew really took off with The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad and Knocked Up all kicking goals. The Other Guys is, however, a step in the right direction. The semi-improvisational comedy style is a bit hit and miss as it always is (the whole back story about Ferrell's character being a pimp in college I could have done without), but generally it's more up than down.
The film had a really interesting cast, which is really what peaked my interest. It was great to finally see Will Ferrell playing a different character. His character in The Other Guys is a slightly repressed nerd, much more like the character he played in Stranger than Fiction than the wailing, screaming man-child we are used to seeing him play. Whalberg has his moments playing a kind of pathetic version of his character Dignam from The Departed. The two aren't quite a natural match, there isn't a real spark there, but they bounce off each other alright. The supporting cast is where the action is though. Steve Coogan, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne "Don't call me The Rock, I'm an actor now" Johnson, Eva Mendes and, the highlight of the bunch, Michael Keaton, who it is great to see back on the big screen generally, and in comedy specifically.
McKay and Ferrell have fun playing with the very well established conventions of the buddy-cop movie, and get some good laughs out of it. The over the top hero-cops Highsmith and Danson are great, in particular the way they meet their demise is quite funny. In general, though, The Other Guys is not nearly as clever as Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz or even, for Australians, Tony Martin's often maligned Bad Eggs.
One thing which did leave my a bit confused was the final credit sequence for the film. While the credits where running there were animations on the screen which included all sorts of statistics about white collar/corporate crime, Bernie Madoff, embezzlement, etc. It seemed to suggest that the filmmakers believed that The Other Guys had made some sort of serious statement about white collar crime, but that is not at all the impression I had got while watching the film. The specific details of the crime that Coogan's character had committed hardly seemed to be highlighted in such a way as to promote moral outrage. If McKay and his team are of the belief that in The Other Guys they had achieved biting satire which made valuable social commentary, I think they might be slightly overestimating what they have produced. The film is reasonably funny, but hardly profound and you don't walk out of the cinema feeling more aware of a certain issue.
If you're a Will Ferrell fan you'll probably find that the constraints of the buddy-cop genre restrict him too much. If you aren't a Will Ferrell fan you'll probably feel there are still a few too many moments where he reverts to playing a wailing man-child. I sit somewhere in between the two. The Other Guys is not the best film Ferrell has made, but it is also far from the worst. It will make you laugh, but it's not hugely memorable.
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