THE MYSTERY that cops Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) try to solve in The Other Guys is just like every other mystery in every other buddy cop movie: It’s there, it pushes the plot forward, and it’s totally fucking irrelevant. People don’t go to movies like The Other Guys for their stories; they go to see Will Ferrell being all goofy and Marky Mark being all Marky Marky. Ideally, there will also be a few car chases. As buddy cop movies go, The Other Guys is no Lethal Weapon, but it’s no Cop Out, either—it’s just solidly mediocre, and you’ll start forgetting about it as soon as the end credits roll.
EXCEPT! No you won’t! Because something weird happens during The Other Guys‘ end credits: It turns into PBS. One minute you’re watching Will Ferrell and Marky Mark make dick jokes and chase bad guys involved in some sort of Ponzi scheme; the next, you’re watching credits roll over animated infographics that highlight the disparity between the average American’s 401(k) and the typical retirement benefits of a CEO. All sorts of graphics zoom around, educating you about Goldman Sachs’ tax rates and whatnot; the soundtrack to this, by the way, is Cee-lo and Eva Mendes singing a song called “Pimps Don’t Cry.” Adam McKay, the director of The Other Guys—and a gazillion other Will Ferrell vehicles—apparently wants to moonlight as a Frontline producer. Also apparently, pimps don’t cry.
Other than its bizarre, last-minute socio-economic commentary, there’s remarkably little to say about The Other Guys: Ferrell and Wahlberg play underdog cops who try to solve an irrelevant mystery. There are lame jokes (“Where’d you learn to drive like that?” “Grand Theft Auto!”), easy gags (an old lady talking dirty), and wacky contrivances (it’s funny that Eva Mendes’ character is married to Will Ferrell’s character, you see, because she is attractive and he is not). If you get stuck with The Other Guys on an airplane, it will mostly be more entertaining than SkyMall. Plus, if you wait until the end credits, you might learn something! Hooray! That means you can skip NPR for the day!
There were definitely some funny parts, but it had some deep flaws. I actually got bored and fell asleep about 2/3 of the way in. This is just a thinly veiled propaganda movie targeting people who still haven’t figured out how broken and corrupt our financial/political system is. I agree with the author’s liking it to a PBS show.