In a summer filled with hit or miss would be blockbusters it is good to know that the slack was taken up by a good crop of comedies and even better that we get to wave goodbye to the season with the best yet.

I was having lunch with a friend of mine the other day and we were talking about my plans for the weekend. I mentioned I was going to go to see the Other Guys and he said that it looked okay and he kind of wanted to see it. I said ‘You realize it is Adam McKay directing Will Ferrell right?’ his eyes lit up and he said ‘the director who did Anchorman?’ I confirmed. The next day I got a text that he was waiting for the movie to start. I tell that story only because I have heard a lot of people leading up to the Other Guys who think that it will suck because they hate Will Ferrell or because it isn’t about Samuel L Jackson and the Rock’s characters or because it is another stupid cop movie when they clearly don’t understand what it is we are dealing with here. It is a cop movie comedy by the guys that did Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. That is a particular pedigree. If those names make positive sparks go off in your head then get to the theater immediately and even if you haven’t seen any of those you should probably get to the theater as soon as possible anyway because the movie is hilarious. If you hate Will Ferrell and wish he would stop making movies because he isn’t funny then you probably should stay home and get all that sand out of your privates.

Danson (Dwayne Johnson) and Highsmith (Samuel L Jackson) are the sort of cops you see in over the top cop movies. They do crazy stunts and spew one liners with the cocky swagger of the sorts of people about which action movies are made. They also do 14 million dollars worth of property damage for a misdemeanor’s worth of pot because that is just the sort of cops they are. They are so good at being hardcore badass hero cops that there is no room for any other cops to step up and be heroes themselves. They are also pretty big dicks.

All Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg)  wanted to do was be one of those dicks but instead he managed to get himself assigned to sitting across the desk from former forensic accountant Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) after an unfortunate mishap while working security at a Yankees game (a scene that, as a Boston fan, I will have to bookmark as a favorite scene on the DVD and watch over and over again). All Hoitz manages to get done in a day is to yell at Gamble for being cheerful and storm out of the office. For Gamble, all he wants to do is sort out a scaffolding permit violation case but instead is waylaid and mocked by rival partners Martin (Rob Riggle) and Fosse (Damon Wayanes JR).

Obviously in a movie about cops there are crimes to be solved and conspiracies to foil and all that happens but the magic of how it goes down is where the fun and the laughs lie in the Other Guys. The story is amusing mostly because of how the characters negotiate it and is noteworthy mostly for how unconventional of a plot it is for movies of this type. This is a send up of buddy cop movies that points out cliches and genre mainstays by pretty much avoiding them. No matter how much Hoitz wants to be in a stereotypical Hollywood cop movie he just isn’t and he has a hard time with that.

He has a hard time with a lot of things and that is another aspect of the Other Guys that is refreshing. A lot of times in movies like this you get a wacky sidekick cop and a straight laced, by the book cop who is probably looking to retire and is getting too old for this shit. In this movie you have two guys who are both good at their particular skill sets but are both quirky and peculiar. Gamble is a smart and talented accountant but he is very reserved and controlled with a false cheerfulness and a stunning level of delusion about his wife and ex-girlfriends. Hoitz is a bundle of rage and is pretty good at kicking ass but has a huge problem properly perceiving reality and finds his achievements constantly stymied by his knack for screwing himself up. This makes for a nice change from movies where one character’s only real function is to handle the action and roll his eyes while the other one does wacky improvisational comedy. Here both characters are wackadoos and you really never know exactly what to expect next.

Will Ferrell turns in one of his most controlled and understated performances to date giving Gamble just the right amount of cheerfulness and pent up aggressiveness but his more subdued antics do not mean that he isn’t funny. His delivery and timing is impeccable and I think his co-stars deserve academy recognition for being able to stay straight faced through whole takes. People really run hot or cold on Ferrell but I think this is one of his best purely comedic performances ever.

As funny as Ferrell was in this the real show stealer is Mark Wahlberg. Any doubt about his ability to carry off comedy is erased very early on. Sure, he has played plenty of angry guys in the past but his willingness to push himself into the absurd and allow himself to be the butt off jokes is surpassed only by his profound sense of delivery and timing. We saw shades of this in Date Night but Wahlberg here is hilarious and very willing to go all the way to sell the jokes and to be in on the comedy. Hoitz is very flawed and Wahlberg isn’t afraid to go all the way to show this. It is a hard thing to describe without ruining the jokes but the world has really been missing out on this side of Mark Wahlberg.

Another performance that needs to be mentioned is Michael Keaton as their Captain. Between this and Toy Story 3 Keaton is back in full form and reminding us just how funny he can be. I hope that he gets back into movies full force. I have missed him particularly when he is in top form like this.

The Other Guys is best when it just lets the characters go about their lives interacting with one another as the conversations and things the characters do are hilarious so when it starts to really serve the plot it slows down a bit and there gets to be some distance between laughs but it never veers too far off course. Still I think it would have been just fine if the characters had just wandered from vignette to vignette and not worried so much about who was stealing from who and why. I understand it was the narrative superglue but I wanted less of anything that distracted from the laughs because they were just so good. Thankfully even these moments of heavy plot were helped along by very funny narration by Ice-T.

Conclusion [9.8 out of 10]

There are a lot of people who don’t dig Will Ferrell or this kind of comedy but if you are a fan of Ferrell and McKay’s previous films then you will absolutely love the Other Guys. And honestly, even if you aren’t a Ferrell fan there are enough actors firing on all cylinders to be worth giving it a watch at least at a bargain show. Personally, I think the movie is incredibly funny and well worth full price. That is what I paid and I can’t wait to be able to see it again.