The Other Guys (2010)

Let's have a few more laughs and one more cop film before Depp Week kicks off. Here's the movie that dethroned Inception from its perch at the top of the box office. And while I'm certainly not going to suggest The Other Guys is the stronger film, it's got a lot of laughs, and it's a solid choice for a trip to the theater if you've already seen Inception (sorry, Cats and Dogs 2).

Writer/director Adam McKay continues his series of collaborations with Will Ferrell (a series which began with Anchorman and continued into fellow funny flicks Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, the latter two introducing John C. Reilly to the mix) here, with Ferrell as desk cop Allen Gamble. After the spots for "top cop" are made vacant at the precinct (thanks to clever surprising cameos by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), Gamble and his partner Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) find themselves in the running to fill the open celebrity shoes - much to the consternation of their stressed captain (Michael Keaton). Gamble and Hoitz find their big case when a scaffolding permit violation leads them to Gordon Gekko-esque David Ershon (Steve Coogan) and an investment scheme that's skimming money from... well, somebody.

It's been MUFMW [(Mostly) Unintentional Food Metaphor Weekend] here at The Cinema King, and so I'll keep it going by saying that The Other Guys is, like many of Adam McKay's other films, a root beer float: two things at once, both tasty and cohabiting without overpowering each other. We have the root beer of a comedy film here but the ice cream heart of a cop film. And if I can stretch the metaphor a little further, the comedy part (the root beer) runs out first; about halfway through, The Other Guys becomes more of a straightforward police movie (ice cream) without losing sight of the comedy roots that make the first half of the film a gutbuster. That's not to say that the second half is less funny; it's just more cop conscious. Perhaps the best example of this divide is Sam Jackson's presence in the early scenes of the film, providing some of the deepest laughs ("Did someone call 9-1-Holy s**t?") but exiting quickly, leaving the film to be something a little more earnestly police-centric.

Fortunately, all the performers are well-equipped to handle the switch. Though Ferrell is obviously more comfortable with the funny stuff, moments when Gamble grows serious are reminiscent of his stellar turn in Stranger Than Fiction, proving that he's a little better than Michael Cera at switching off the "goofy" setting. Wahlberg, conversely, is more at home as the cop, but he wisely draws on his role as Sgt. Dignam in Scorsese's The Departed (which, if you haven't seen it, is pretty much the greatest movie ever made) to create a compelling police character with a prominent funny bone. Though Coogan is finely restrained (a far cry from Tropic Thunder and Tristram Shandy), the master of comedic timing in the film is Michael Keaton, who's already earned high marks from me for his role as Ken in Toy Story 3; Keaton is fantastic as the exasperated Captain Gene, juggling punchlines about a bisexual DJ son at NYU and a side job as a manager at Bed Bath & Beyond without ever feeling forced. I'm not saying this is an entirely compelling character, but Keaton's delivery certainly prevents the character from feeling like a mere receptacle for outrageous subplot after outlandish character trait. (One final note - is it a rule that Eva Mendes can only appear in cop movies? She's plenty funny as Gamble's "plain" wife, but it's a little jarring that I've only tagged her name in posts about cop movies.)

I want to go back briefly and reexamine the root beer float claim. No, I'm not going to strain the metaphor any more (though you'll probably see the phrase come up several times more on this blog), but I do want to talk a little bit about how movies can be two things at once - and do that well; failure to do so is, after all, one of the most frequently recurring complaints on this blog. I claimed that Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers all do this; Anchorman begins as a slapstick frat pack flick but becomes a commentary on the battle of the sexes, Talladega Nights changes gears between egotistical satire and satire on the cult of celebrity, and Step Brothers lampoons conventional sibling rivalries before metamorphosing (or, as the phrase goes, taking the shape of a unicorn) into a thoughtful meditation on growing up. For some, this can be jarring, but I think McKay's screenplays do a decent job of handling the left-hand turns that I've come to expect - and appreciate - from his work. Kudos, then, Mr. McKay, for doing what I've often said might be impossible. Now if you can get Megan Fox to actually act, then we're in business.

Until then, just keep making funny movies; I'll be in the front row until my sides split.
The Other Guys is rated PG-13 "for crude and sexual content, language, violence and some drug material." I thought it was all pretty tame; there are a few lines between Ferrell and Mendes that push the envelope, and a few sexual jokes crop up, but the most omnipresent objectionable content is the coat of cocaine that envelops Ferrell's red Prius.