06 August 2010

The Other Guys


COLUMBIA PICTURES-SONY, MACALL POLAY
Mark Wahlberg, right, and Will Ferrell are shown in a scene from "The Other Guys."
It seems the movie-going public has been suffering a bit from Will Ferrell overload. All you need to do is take a look at the box office returns and critical assessments of some his recent films, both of which bottomed out with last year's flop, "Land of the Lost."

So for "The Other Guys," he returned to his comfort zone with Adam McKay, who directed him in "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights" and "Step Brothers." The quality of their collaborations also has followed a noticeable downward trend, one that "The Other Guys" easily reverses.

The premise is golden: Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson are P.K. Highsmith and Christopher Danson, New York City's biggest hotshot cops. They are celebrities not just within the police department but to the public at large. Car chases, shootouts, millions of dollars in property damage—they're all in a day's work, even when the perps are caught with less than a pound of marijuana.

In short, they are the kind of cops that are the focus of most action movies.