"The Other Guys" Is More Than Worth The Price Of Admission

It is a great feeling for a movie to past one’s expectations and this is what happened to me when I saw the movie, “The Other Guys,” which stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as NYPD cops… who are overshadowed by other officers. These other officers, who get all the shine and glory, are played hilariously, if only briefly, by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I and the audience were literally laughing out loud from the dialogue coming out of the mouths of Mr. Jackson and Mr. Johnson - and as funny as those gentlemen are, Ferrell and Wahlberg knock it out of the park.

You may call “The Other Guys” the come back movie for Ferrell who has stunk up the movie theaters with his recent outings, but he is redeemed in this movie. All the dialogue work in “The Other Guys” and, yes, we all know that if Ferrell is given the right script, like here, that he is going to deliver - but it is Wahlberg who nearly steals the show. I am debating if this is so because I went in there with low expectations for Mr. Wahlberg comedic talents or it is the simple fact that he is that good. I come down on the side that Mr. Wahlberg is that good and is in fact excellent in holding his own against Ferrell.

The reason Ferrell, the passive bean counter for NYPD, is teamed with the macho type A personality, Wahlberg, is because the latter supposedly shot Derek Jeter – the flash back scene, recalled while Wahlberg is in group therapy, is belly-achingly hilarious. Michael Keaton of “Batman” and “Beatle Juice’s” fame plays the captain of “The Other Guys” and he too is stellar in delivering his lines in a deadpan manner that had the audience rolling. In the movie, Mr. Keaton has a tendency to incorporate lyrics in his pep talks seemingly taken from the now defunct Hip Hop group, TLC, with Keaton claiming no knowledge of who TLC was.  Other standout performances are done by Eva Mendes as the wife of Ferrell: there are scenes where Ferrell and Mendes have to communicate sex talk through Mendes’ grandmother… this too will have you in stitches.      

Are there any criticisms I have for “The Other Guys”? - only in the movie credits… where they list how much CEOs were making before the economic down turn… giving us a listing of all the bad guys who were supposedly responsible for our current economic mess. I am not going to fault the CEOs for what salary they negotiated because I am certain that Mr. Ferrell negotiated and received millions for “The Other Guys.” Moreover, I am also certain that Mr. Ferrell did not return the million he received in those stinkers he made before he rapturously redeemed himself in “The Good Guys.”