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 In cinemas now [M]
Director: Adam McKay
Runtime: 107mins.
Will Ferrell’s previous films with director Adam McKay have been more hit (Anchorman and Talladega Nights) than miss (Step Brothers), so the mere fact of the two working together again suggested a certain amount of promise for The Other Guys. The real drawcard, though was Mark Wahlberg – a handsome, square-jawed type who tends to get cast mostly in action roles, his prowess as a comedy actor is way, way underrated, as his turns in I Heart Huckabees and Date Night proved. These two things, coupled with my long-held love of the action-comedy genre, and its attendant explosions and cheesy wisecracks, were enough to get me pumped for this film. Here’s the weird thing though – as funny as The Other Guys is, I really don’t know that I could recommend it wholeheartedly. Is it possible to bust a gut laughing through a movie and still come out feeling weirdly unsatisfied? The Other Guys proved it so.
Ferrell and Wahlberg star as NYPD Detectives Gamble and Holtz, a nerdy forensic accountant and a trigger-happy loose cannon, relegated to boring deskwork as others from their precinct hog all the high-profile cases and the glory. Seeing a chance to shine, Holtz drags Gamble into an outrageously convoluted investigation involving a diamond heist, a corrupt investment banker (Steve Coogan) and scores of explosions, car chases and gun-toting heavies. The plot is so ludicrous it defies explanation – ideally, it would only be there as an excuse for Ferrell and Wahlberg to bounce off one-another as mismatched partners, anyway – but The Other Guys takes makes the mistake of treating its white-collar crime storyline way too seriously, devoting long, boring chunks of time to this when it should be giving them over to the interplay of the two leads.
The silly plotting isn’t the only problem – The Other Guys is very poorly-edited, resulting in a long string of scenes where stuff just kind of happens, with no relation to what has happened immediately before, and stretches that should be tense and funny but instead fall flat. Make no mistake, Wahlberg and Ferrell make a very funny pair, and between them, and there are more than enough quotable lines to keep fans of Anchorman and Talladega nights . The problem is that Wahlberg and Ferrell are so good together it’s a pity Adam McKay didn’t make a stronger movie to fit around their bickering and bantering.
**½
ALASDAIR DUNCAN
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