Review of The Other Guys (2010) by Eric H — 31 Mar 2013

"The Other Guys" is like a magic trick with a setup that doesn't match the execution-- we're shown a woman about to be sawed in half, and then the magician holds up a rabbit and expects us to be impressed.

For about 20 minutes, it's a goofy but clever parody of the action genre, but the movie can't recover from the loss of spontaneous fun and energy possessed by Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson once they make their (truly hilarious) exits.

After that, the story literally stops being about "the other guys," and simply has the main characters embrace the same tropes they were initially subverting. Once Terry reveals his insane world-class fighting skills, what separates him from any other virtually-superhuman action hero (Like Danson and Highsmith, or Cobra, or John Matrix)? Ferrell and Wahlberg make a good pair, and occasionally there's a good non-sequitur gag (a hallmark of Ferrell-McKay flicks), but this is ultimately a routinely dull buddy-cop action-comedy.