Make no mistake, The Other Guys isn’t a particularly great film. However, compared to the similarly themed Cop Out, its Adam McKay’s latest outing with Will Ferrell that wins the shoot out with bullets to spare. The film has a good start with McKay doing an outrageous parody of buddy cop movies with Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L Jackson hamming up the screen gleefully alongside a knowingly ridiculous car chase. A plot device means we then focus on Gamble (Ferrell) and Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) a pair of mismatched cops (yawn) who eventually leave their usual desk bound duties and get out there where the action is. The storyline that unfolds, investigating Steve Coogans shady business, is basically a MacGuffin for a number of scenes where Ferrell and Wahlberg knock heads. This works up to a point (the scene where Wahlberg meets Ferrell’s sexy wife is great) but after a while it becomes somewhat tiresome, not helped by the continued confusion whether Wahlberg is actually a great straight man or as wooden as they come. Ferrell is the star of the show though, pretty much carrying the film from start to finish. McKay could have had something a bit better here overall if he had trimmed the running time by a good 20 minutes, and the films social commentary falls flat on its face as the target audience will be laughing at Ferrell's antics as opposed to caring what a Ponzi scheme is. All in all this is quite a disjointed film, but there are enough scenes that work to at least justify the entrance fee.
The OC Film Sting Final Verdict
This is the Ferrel show, which is a good thing as McKay is still struggling to find the magic touch that bought us Anchorman. Rating: 6/10.
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