Milling amongst the hundreds who had just watched the Australian premiere of Adam McKay’s The Other Guys at the Robina Cinema Complex on the Gold Coast, one could sense the overwhelming mood was that the film was very funny in parts but not a 'classic" Will Ferrell comedy.
Adjectives such 'classic" and 'masterpiece" are bandied about way too often in film criticism. 'A classic for our times," said ex-Maxim critic Pete Hammond of Superbad; '...an undeniable masterpiece," said Kansas City News’ Shawn Edwards of Grindhouse. (And yes, before the trollers pounce, 'mesmerising" and 'heartbreaking," said SBS Film’s Simon Foster of Nine.) There would be considerable debate as to whether the enormous box office success Will Ferrell has enjoyed in any way warrants any of his movies being regarded as classics.
The Other Guys can claim its own achievements, however, and they are not inconsiderable. As the forensic accountant/nerd Allen Gamble, Ferrell very much downplays his comic edge – there are no phone booth meltdowns or nude sprints to showcase his customised manic persona; his mismatched precinct partner Terry Hoitz is played by Mark Wahlberg, who provides his own nutty riff on the furrowed brow tough guy that has become his stock-in-trade and is easily the breakout comedy star of the film. Support work is excellent – from the very game Eva Mendes (as Ferrell’s ridiculously beautiful wife) and Steve Coogan (as the villainous financier David Ershon) to the terrific Michael Keaton as the precinct CO (who ignorantly uses lines from TLC songs as motivational speak) and Samuel Jackson and Dwayne 'The Rock’ Johnson as the Division’s ultra-cool supercops.
The shortcomings of the film are largely in its tone and structure. Most of the early set-up is smart but very standard good/bad buddy-cop routines – McKay and his co-scripter Chris Henchy define their lead characters within broad but realistic terms. But the comedy then jarringly alternates between character-driven (Terry’s first visit to Allen’s home, where he first glimpses Eva Mendes, is hilarious) and fanciful (Ershon twice cons these two cops with offers of free tickets to major events). Without the rarefied comedy extremes that a frantic Will Ferrell usually provides to pull off such lunacy, The Other Guys feels a little patchy, even ill-disciplined.
From Ferrell’s prolific oeuvre as leading man, The Other Guys sits somewhere in the middle in terms of inspired laughs – well below Blades of Glory (2007), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Talladega Nights (2006) and Elf (2003); about on par with Semi-Pro (2008), Step Brothers (2008) and Old School (2003); remarkably better than Kicking and Screaming (2005), Land of the Lost (2009) and Bewitched (2005). Marc Forster’s Truman Show-like fantasy/drama Stranger than Fiction (2006), which featured a sweet and subdued Ferrell to brilliant effect, is the closest he has come to cinematic nirvana.
Still, it’s no classic.
