Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Will Ferrel) are the other guys, two cops who a little off. The hero cops of the precinct, Highsmith and Danson, have set a bar for the way work is done. But after tragedy strikes their spots are left open and Terry and Allen move to step into those shoes, mostly by the coaxing of Terry. But Allen doesn't want to go into the field and would rather sit behind the safety of his desk. But Terry is determined to get out into field assignments. Ultimately their attempts to be good cops put them in a situation where they get more than they bargained for dealing with people with very high connections that nobody wants to mess with.
The Other Guys is a comedy that is funny mainly in the vain of stupid comedies. So in essence, it's similar to other Will Ferrel comedies. But despite that it's a dumb comedy it's still funny in that right with a nice pair up between Ferrel and Wahlberg who seem to work quite well together. At the same time the jokes still rise to a higher level that complete stupidity to make it work. I think that buddy cop comedies can just be hard to pull off effectively and this year The Other Guys was the one that worked, a nice refreshment from the previous buddy cop movie earlier this year, Cop Out.
But people who don't like dumb comedy really won't enjoy this film. The reality is that the characters really are quite one dimensional and just plain unintelligent. It's evident what they do and why they do it has more to do with setting up jokes than actually dealing with the character. Which honestly works in a film like this. But I think what helped this film was the cast and the addition of Steve Coogan in the mix. I think he balanced it out and allowed for the film to not be dumb as it could have been. And as someone who normally doesn't like Will Ferrel I actually enjoyed him in this film.
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