The Other Guys is a funny movie no doubt about it, it just doesn’t reach the comedic highs of Will Ferrell’s best films. As such I’m reviewing this film as a comparison to his earlier work. There are plenty of ridiculous moments and demented lines in the script written by director and frequent collaborator, Adam McKay (along with Chris Henchy), but the film never reaches the lunacy of Ferrell and McKay’s other films together.

The films starts off with a raucous car chase through the middle of Manhattan with super-cops Highsmith and Danson (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson in delicious cameos)in hot pursuit of machine gun toting thugs. Of course they capture the bad guys, but in the process they manage to totally destroy multiple cars, a tour bus and a store front in the process. The funny thing is no one seems to mind and the two are treated like heroes. After collecting medals for their bravery, the two arrive back at the police station where we are introduced to the other guys on the force; paper pushing, desk jockeys who take care of the “boring” police work. Will Ferrell plays Allen Gamble, a mild mannered, meticulous cop who loves his job so much, he actually volunteers for more paper work. His partner, Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg), is an angry, tough guy whose career as a detective fizzled after an unfortunate incident with a NY Yankee.

Terry longs to get out of the station, so that he can prove that he’s got what it takes to be a great cop, but Allen is such a stick in the mud, he has to resort to threatening him with bodily harm if they don’t start going after some bad guys. The two soon wind up embroiled in a huge case involving a Wall Street tycoon (A reserved Steve Coogan). The detective work scenes in the film aren’t really silly at all (they may as well be lifted straight out of the Lethal Weapon playbook) and this actually enhances and makes the movie funnier. 

Ferrell is quite different here than he usually is when teamed with McKay. His characters in Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers were all buffoonish man-child’s prone to hissy fits, whereas Gamble is really just a normal, nice guy who represses his dark side. No worries though, as the movie progresses, Ferrell lets loose in his typical comic style to great effect. There is one scene where he sings a traditional folk song that made me almost wet myself. Ferrell shares a solid chemistry with Walhberg as the straight man of the duo and the two mine some solid laughs together. Wahlberg plays his character as a street-wise, tough guy who is prone to fits of rage that nicely parodies the Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis type cops we’ve seen a thousand times.

There are many running gags in the film (Allen’s Prius, orgies with homeless men and The Little River Band to name but a few) and most of them hit the mark. Director Adam McKay (responsible for Ferrell’s best movies) does a great job of tying all the comedy together while grounding the police work in a firm reality (with the exception of the opening sequence with Jackson and Johnson which is intentionally over the top). 

A special shout out to Michael Keaton as Captain Gene Mauch. Keaton is quite funny in the role and actually has one of the best running gags in the film. His character unknowingly (?) quotes lyrics by TLC many times and it never gets old. After all but disappearing the last couple of years, it is a pleasure to see the former Batman pop up again this summer, in both this film and as the voice of Ken in Toy Story 3. 

To sum it up, The Other Guys isn’t the funniest collaboration between McKay and Ferrell, but nonetheless it is quite amusing and features quite a few big laughs along the way.