The Other Guys

No movie I've rented has ever endured longer spells with my finger on the fast-forward button than Talladega Nights, the story of car racer Ricky Bobby. I recall it being a series of increasingly low-brow gags that were disjointed from any sense of plot.

The same director pairs up with Will Ferrell again in The Other Guys, a comedy about a dysfunctional police station with a gaping leadership void following the early and tragicomic demise of action heroes played by Samuel L. Jackson and The Rock. In steps Mark Wahlberg and Ferrell. Wahlberg's character is initially haunted by a career-stunting mistake while on World Series detail. Ferrell, the recently lateraled forensic accountant, is cold water on Wahlberg's fire, and steam spews early and often.

As the plot progresses, a robbery and shady dealings involving a wealthy financier launch a spirited hunt by the partners in Ferrell's Prius. The clash in personalities carries the movie well for the first half hour. Then it takes a Talladega-like turn into an extensive exploration of the detective's personal lives which advances nothing, dredging the well of goofy contradiction again and again (witness Ferrell's magnetic attraction of women with supermodel looks).

I liked the movie better than Ricky Bobby's. Watching a police car covered with cocaine roll down the street, a grandmother relaying dirty talk between a husband and wife, and a troop of homeless guys obsessed with having orgies in a Prius has a certain creative zaniness to it. It also reveals the overboard amount of irreverence that distracts from a hundred legitimate silly gags. This director has mastered the ability to make a two-hour film feel like three.

Wait for this one to come out on cable. Or if you loved Talladega, get out and see it soon!