Escape to the Movies: The Other Guys

[Turtleboy1017]

My sincere gratitude, Movie Bob. And apologies. You have to sit through one piece of dreck after another so I don't have to.

Greater love hath no man than he should suffer for another...

I honestly don't see why you would stop seeing a film because of another persons review... Everyone has their own preference, and since Movie Bob has seen every film made since 1920 over the span of however long his career is, 12 movies a day, I can see why he thinks it to be an overdone boring film.

However, for those of us that HAVEN'T seen every cop comedy since the 1980's, the movie was a surprisingly funny modernized version of it. Easily worth the admission fee. If you had any interest in seeing the movie that was dashed by this review, then I suggest that you watch it.

If, you already had your doubts and weren't thinking of seeing it anyway, by all means don't

 

[Starke]

I remember when will ferrel and jackie chan were reasons to see a movie. Now it's more of a reason to avoid it, so another c movie.
And yes stranger than fiction was good and one of ferrels last good films. I don't know if it's bad acting or bad writing but he really has gone downhill.

I'd lean towards the bad writing, more than the acting. Though, what I've seen has been pretty horrific on both counts.

At some level I keep going back to my theory that for this kind of a comedy film to work, it really needs an R rating, and readily point to The Hangover as evidence. The PG13 films seem to regress into middle-school bullshit that almost no one over the (psychological) age of 15 wants to see...

...I'd expand on this, but I'm fighting with insomnia at the moment.

 

[absoul11]

Nice one Bob and i watched extra credits before t was on the Escapist.
Funny thing about the Rock.

 

[savageoblivi0n]

i saw the other guys the other day and loved it, i haven't been a fan of will ferrel in the past few years (read: since most things after anchorman) but i thought this was hilarious..

and to things being said about the rock, what if he just enjoys making comedies? maybe it's just this viewer's eye, but when i see him in a comedy he really seems to just let go and have fun with it, which to me is refreshing with all the "i'm strong....must look angry!" body-builder type actors today

 

[itf cho]

Well, that about sums it up... "a nothing movie." Of course, I kinda figured that once they mentioned Will Ferrell's name. With the possible exception of Tina Fey, has ANYTHING (or anyone) come out of SNL in the last decade that's been even remotely funny? I'll admit, I wasn't predisposed towards this movie in the first place, due to the stink of Ferrel. I saw him some on SNL (before I swore off the show forever as the comedy cesspool of the universe it's become), and the guy never did a damn thing that made me laugh; and the few things I've seen Ferrel in since SNL - and only as a supporting cast member - hasn't changed my opinion of him. He's got to be the most overrated SNL cast member since Chris Farley.

And what Wahlberg and Jackson are doing in a Ferrell flick has me totally confused. Does someone have embarrassing photos of them or something?

 

[crewman_number_6]

I'm sorry to call out movie bob on this one, this movie is honestly one of my favorite movies now and had the best action scene I've ever seen.

 

[brainslurper]

1. anchorman
2. talledega knights
3.step brothers
4. land of the lost
5. this movie
honestly it wasnt that good. seems like they need to put more thought in before they throw stuff out like this, take about 4x giving it more memorable lines, and a funnyer script, but after making 4 movies that were funny, seems the creativeness is running low.

 

[TheSchaef]

So its nowhere near as good as Hot Fuzz?

Thats good cos thats what I saw in the trailer...an American wannabe rip-off of Hot Fuzz (best movie ever in my opinion). Dont get me wrong, ill still see this but im glad that its not a wham bam must-see movie...like Hot Fuzz was!

I think this is where we are going to fall down as American moviegoers, in expecting that anything we produce here will ever be as funny or original as its British counterpart. The Brits are WAY funnier than we are, and often more clever about how they do it. They cut together the movie like a supercop film but played it to an absurd level. They succeeded in this stylistically by reading Ebert's book of movie cliches and then DELIBERATELY INCLUDING THEM as a visual punch line. They steeped their characters in irony, flooded their cast with stars (in Britain, not so much in America except for maybe Bill Nighy, and I guess I have to include Steve Coogan since he was in this movie also) and had a smashing final act to the film. To produce anything close to that quality, Hollywood would need to take the cast of The Expendables and make THEM the rest of the police force, have Ferrell and Wahlberg play cliched roles straight-faced rather than absurd characters that would never pass a psych eval in a real station, and have Michael Keaton (or another scene-stealer like Shatner or Robert Wagner) as the heavy. And even then you would still have to deal with Hollywood scripting, and the fact that Edgar Wright was directing Scott Pilgrim instead of your movie.

The thing with The Rock is that I think he saw Vin Diesel trying to play those serious action roles, fail miserably and then fade into obscurity, and figured that a living spoofing his looks and charm would keep him better employed. It may be the most shrewd career move since Will Smith decided to do a heavy sci-fi concentration. Besides, we all remember Doom... the sad thing is there are so many of these guys that we think SHOULD be action heroes - Johnson, Diesel, Wesley Snipes in his prime, Hugh Jackman, and so on - and what do we get instead? Shia LenonononoNONONONO and Tobey Maguire (whom I admire a lot, make no mistake). Matt Damon as Jason Bourne has been the only bankable action star I can recall in years. The Expendables is almost a joke on the whole industry because all the badasses are 60+ and there's no one in this generation to fill the void they leave when they all become Clint Eastwood's age.

To call this a "nothing" movie and reference the "Family Guy Paradox" is an interesting take on modern comedy but I think all of this is a symptom of something that predates even that: the Seinfeld Phenomenon. That show ruled the universe for nine years following the mishaps of four maladjusted, self-absorbed New Yorkers who never developed as characters and spoke tomes on "nothing". It was the novelty of "nothing" and the "hey, yeah, I remember that fad and/or know that microcosmic life event whereof they speak" that had people laughing. Honestly: look at the characters, the setting, the irreverent humor... what is Family Guy really? It's the Simpsons, but injected with the appeal to the random that made Seinfeld.

For this reason, I believe Seinfeld is what will make American comedy a lost cause for a generation. Not because of the show itself, which was subtly ingenious and original at the time, but because of all the other shows and movies trying to catch the same brand of lightning in a bottle. If you can't fill up the program with quality material of your own, just have an extended break-the-fourth-wall discussion about a plot hole or paper it over with a pop culture reference. In The Emperor's New Groove, it nearly made up for having David Spade in the movie. In Family Guy, it has me waiting to see what part of my childhood they'll be spoofing next. Robot Chicken gets the formula exactly right by having a show about nothing but pop culture humor and limiting the exposure to sketches between four seconds and four minutes. But for every implementation of this you can forgive, there are ten others that make you facepalm. America needs to find its own sense of humor again before chasing Seinfeld's shadow makes everything unfunny for the next twenty years.

 

[Tijok]

Alright, I had to make an account just to make sure someone on here voiced the evidently small opposing side. I would never have guessed this would be a movie to face stolid hatred, and here of all places. I found it to be enjoyable, insightful, and quite good. Not astounding, but a really solid effort to bring new ideas into light, and here's why:

1. The antagonist: This movie is as much about buddy cops as Inception is about a commando team. Yes, buddy cops are the protagonists. Yes, they are quite humorous, and yes, they follow all of the right (or wrong) tropes. But that is only half of the film. You might have noticed that Bob here did not mention the antagonist. The antagonist was a huge contribution to the film, a businessman. Yes, a businessman, not a Bond villain, not a super-criminal (arguably), a business CEO who is guilty of tax fraud/racketeering. The same kind that gets locked up rarely, but talked about constantly.

2. The setting: Right from the get go, with the super-cop stereotypes being played out hilariously, we know this is a parody. What we see shortly after that, but NEVER in the trailers, is that it is a parody of not only buddy cop films, but Hollywood expectations, and even so far as the public's interpretation of crime. I found this to be way deeper than I expected.

3. The plot: I will not pretend that this was writing masterpiece, it was not. But calling it forgettable is just insulting. When a big budget film goes out of its way to have the plotline follow characters and situations that are rarely explored, and can shed real light on social and economical issues in the world, it should be commended. Or at least mentioned.

I'll let the film itself try to do a better job of explaining its purpose than I ever could, just check out the end credits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueUPvPk0Q00

Seriously, MovieBob. Why was none of this addressed?

 

[head desk tricycle]

Quite possibly the greatest comic actor ever, Leslie Nielsen, stumbled into playing parodies of a leading man type from a mostly nonexistent career playing actual leading man types. I'm not saying I have no problem with the Rock's parody portrayals, just not that specific problem.
Also, Adam McKay (director of Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and this movie) isn't much of a comedy director, and he doesn't seem to improve much with each new film. He relies on quirkiness, much like the films of Christopher Guest and Wes Anderson, but unlike those guys he isn't really that good at it, and I'm pretty sure he only uses it out of disrespect for his audience.