My criterion for buying DVDs is the same I use to find a girlfriend: whatever Johnny the Blade has for sale in the back of his truck.
When that fails me, and I have to resort to less illegal methods like pawing through my roommate's things while he's off at his "job," I consider whether I'll be happy to pack a given movie up and take it along with me next time I move, which, considering all the crime and such, is often.
I liked Transporter 2, but there's no way I can stick that into a box and haul it along for 1,100 miles without questioning whether I really need a hard copy of Jason Statham Kicks Down Houses and Drives Away.
There are enough reasons to be angry with the people in your everyday life to put up with any crap from a bunch of inanimate objects. As a result, my personal movie collection is small, and mostly composed of things I'd watch at the slightest provocation. It's somewhat uneven, but for pure rewatchability, The Other Guys could someday make it onto that shelf.
Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson are the baddest cops in NYC. As they handle every major crime in the precinct, Mark Wahlberg seethes over his paperwork and boring new partner, forensic accountant Will Ferrell.
The death of Jackson and Johnson during a chase opens the door for Wahlberg to claim their place. Instead, Ferrell ropes him into a case about scaffolding violations--but they're soon enmeshed in a broad conspiracy of kidnappings, international finance, and bombings.
The Other Guys is directed and cowritten by Adam McKay, the guy behind earlier Ferrell comedies Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Based on this, you probably already know whether you will like it, much as fans of men not hitting things with sticks know they will enjoy a 2010 Mariners game or a nonabusive domestic partnership.
But The Other Guys has things hapless baseball teams and bloodless, lifeless, brawl-free relationships don't. Like sharp writing and a very funny, very bizarre turn from Ferrell, who's always at his best when playing a character who feels like a transplant from a parallel dimension where it's perfectly acceptable to shout into someone's face every time you see them. Wahlberg capably holds his own even when it's time for heavy improv.
The Other Guys' biggest strength, though, is its willingness to dive into irrelevant tangents. It's very hit and miss, but the stuff that hits impacts with the strength of a gorilla who just discovered his wife has been cheating on him with his gorilla boss, who he already resented because gorillas can't count and his paycheck was always short.
Rather than sticking to conventional buddy-cop arguments, Ferrell is baffled, for instance, that Wahlberg learned ballet as a kid just to be able to make fun of the nancyboys down the block. The two constantly butt heads, stopping cold to yell at each other about grievances that are as ridiculous as they are funny.
This has its drawbacks. With all the screeching, fighting, and songs about pimps, it isn't always easy to follow the crime they're tracking down, a convoluted financial fraud that's lost for long stretches of time.
And the sheer rate of the jokes, many of which don't connect, can make the great ones feel diluted, even when The Other Guys is dishing out some hard satire on who we look to as heroes.
On the other hand, when I was in the theater, we almost never all reacted at once, but someone, somewhere, was laughing their fool head off. Often, that foolhead was me.
Grade: B+
