Review of The Other Guys (2010) by Harry W — 04 Mar 2014

I watched The Other Guys when I was young and remembered vaguely liking it, and re-watching it now with a greater understanding of and appreciation for Will Ferrell and Mark Whalberg made it likely I would have a greater appreciation for it.

The thing that separates The Other Guys from so many other films of its genre is two things: the strange pairing of buddy cops and moreso the fact that the film is packed I the brim which weird characters usually reserved for some kind of satire or parody film.

The buddy cops this time are a badass trying to get back in the game teamed up with a very theoretical computer nerd which he absolutely hates with a passion, and with all the rest of the characters entering the world the film unravels into a very strange yet hilarious comedy.

The world of The Other Guys is full of senselessly strange characters, but since director Adam McKay manages to incorporate them in well they all feel genuinely believable and comedically successful. It almost becomes borderline spoof humour at several pints without crossing that line somehow, and it's pretty surprising that Adam McKay manages to do that so well. But it shouldn't be because he is a fine comedy film director and The Other Guys is another example of that.

The script is well written but it is a thin line the film treads with it because without the right cast the script would come off as unfunny and repetitive, but since The Other Guys has the perfect cast for its material, it's a grand comedic success.

Mark Whalberg makes a powerful lead because he has a lot of comedic energy which he combines with a sense of dominant strength and aggressiveness which makes him ideal for the role of an ambitious police officer. And teaming him up with Will Ferrell proves to be a great and hilarious success.

Will Ferrell is in a much more different role to essentially all his other films, because while his character is still very neurotic it's in the context where his character is a nerd. He's a lot more theoretical in his character and humour, and he has a severely awkward chemistry with Mark Whalberg and even more strangely awkward with Eva Mendes which both proves to be strongly successful to comedic effect. He is utterly hilarious in The Other Guys.

Eva Mendes plays a great character because she's a smokin hot Cuban-American woman but her character is a simple minded housewife with a sexual mind which doesn't come until later in in the film. She's surprisingly comedic in The Other Guys, and she makes a great addition to the cast.

Michael Keaton is also a nostalgic presence because he was considerably successful in the first two Batman films, and so it's good to see him active in popular mainstream films again.

And Dwayne Johnson's brief time teaming up with Samuel L. Jackson yields some of the most unexpected and impressively hilarious results that you would never see coming.

And plus, the cinematography and editing in The Other Guys is all really strong and the soundtrack is effective.

The negative qualities are despite the fact that the poster for the film advertises the two main characters flying through the air with weaponry, there is very little action in The Other Guys. There is a small quantity at the start and then an extended period of nothing. And that extended period is actually almost the entire film. A good buddy cop action comedy has to have an even rate of action and comedy or at least a good quantity of it, but The Other Guys has neither. It has plenty of comedy but barely any action, and for a film boasting weaponry and police officers, it's just misleading and disappointing.

That and the fact that as the drama of the story begins to seep in more and more, the quantity of comedy gradually becomes more and more inconsistent.

But aside from that, The Other Guys is a fairly hilarious effort from Adam McKay which benefits from the performances of Mark Whalberg and Will Ferrell, as well as their comedic chemistry.