The Other Guys – Review
We all pretend to love the board game Monopoly. It’s fun picking that metallic shoe or hat that will represent you through the game. We love getting those first couple of properties, we love forcing people to pay for landing on them, but soon after that initial opening time we start to force ourselves to pay attention, helplessly hoping the initial fun will return, only to realize we’re two hours in, with no signs of the damned thing ending. Alas, that’s The Other Guys. After the initial fun that is to be had in the first thirty minutes, it just flat-lines, with no effort to jump start itself. “Clear!” ZAP! No, they lost the audience.â€
That initial promise was exciting. Sam Jackson and The Rock cameo as the two cool cops we always see in movies that say all of the bad-ass one-liners and do the most outrageous action scenarios to capture the bad guys. We’ve see in a zillion times, and in films like Bad Boys or Bullitt, it’s cool. Always has and always will be. But what happens when the cool cops die? Who will step up to handle the crime? Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. Okay, I can buy that. They’re glorified desk cops, yet they strive to be the ones that can handle the biz. Jokes are funny, as they’re polar opposites, making it a possible clever spin on the buddy cop genre. Like I said, I laughed and was on board, but then amidst three(!) running gags that don’t work, random scenarios that pile-drive your funny bone, we’re left with a film that has a sprinkling of humor intertwined with being so-damn-boring.
The Other Guys feels like a 10-minute Funny or Die sketch played out for nearly two hours. It tries to be satirical on the buddy cop genre, yet it isn’t smart enough. It’s a wanna-be Hot Fuzz. As game as Will Ferrell is, and Wahlberg can be funny, it’s all for naught, since the script just excruciatingly inches forward…towards…its…con…clu…sion. Tsk, tsk. Comedies that are funny, aren’t this repetitive and have faster pacing. It’s the Monopoly of comedies. There’s enough little snips of humor, of one-liners, of moments, that are worth remembering, but they’re only really for those annoying high school kids who will oddly latch onto those for ad nausea.
Rating: 
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I completely agree. This movie did nothing but bore me and remind me why I can’t stand Will Ferrell.
I might be a little biased here since I worked on the film, but I highly enjoyed it. It made me laugh a lot. It did drag a bit in the middle, but it certainly picked back up again as it reached climax. It was really cool to read the script, then visit the set, and then see the final product. I’m a little surprised at a couple of scenes that were cut from the movie.
And in defense of Will, he’s a great guy, nice, down to Earth guy. He really gets a bad rap. I wasn’t a fan of him from some of the stories I’ve heard, but he’s nothing like the media portray him to be.
Oh it dragged until we just didn’t care anymore. Seems a little unfocused for a 2 hour flick.