But The Other Guys isn't easy to peg. It's not a comedy that loosens you up and mellows you out; it works by needling you progressively into a state of anxiety. I walked out of the thing with my nerves humming. Part of that has to do with the chemistry between its two stars, Ferrell and Wahlberg. They're an uneasy yet inspired match: Ferrell is Allen Gamble, the most timid New York City cop imaginable (he was transferred over from forensics accounting), who's happy to sit at his desk whenever an urgent call comes in over the radio. His partner, Wahlberg's Terry Hoitz, is a thundercloud with a badge who can't wait to get out there and prove his stuff. The problem is, he's already proved it: A hothead with a gun, he gained renown in the force after shooting Derek Jeter by mistake. (Jeter himself appears in a tiny, amusing cameo.)
At headquarters, Alan and Terry sit opposite one another -- Alan tapping away at his computer, Terry perpetually tapping his leg. Alan annoys his officemate first by absent-mindedly humming the theme from S.W.A.T., then moving on to I Dream of Jeannie. Terry responds to these happy-go-lucky tics by blowing up. He calls Alan a fake cop before progressing to even harsher, if inane, insults: "The sound of your piss hitting the urinal -- it sounds feminine to me!" he blurts out. He's cooped up in the office, and he hates it. "I am a peacock! You've gotta let me fly!" he tells the world, or at least the office.
The Other Guys opens with a parody of a generic bad-ass NYC cop drama, a destructive, explosive mess (one of the highlights involves a cop car driving straight into a double-decker tourist bus) which, if it happened in real life, would result in the deaths of dozens of citizens and law-enforcement officials. The heroes of this mini action extravaganza are Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson (their scenes are brief but fun), who of course emerge without a scratch. These are the cops everyone on the force wants to be; the "other guys," chiefly Allen and Terry, are left doing the paperwork, though they strive to prove their worth (at the more ambitious Terry's prodding) by pursuing a fatcat, possibly crooked capitalist played by Steve Coogan (whom Terry derisively addresses, at one point, as Andrew Lloyd Weber).
The Other Guys does pull off a perfectly passable story arc, complete with a reasonable degree of character development. (The script is by Chris Henchy.) McKay is the director behind what are generally the best Will Ferrell comedies, including Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and, my personal favorite, the 2008 Step Brothers (in which Ferrell and John C. Reilly play petulant grown-ups who refuse to grow up; they use tricycles as weapons and grumble about how unfair life is while sprawled on their beds wearing Chewbacca masks).
The Other Guys has more of a serrated edge than any of those comedies, partly because of the way Wahlberg's Terry needles Ferrell's Alan so relentlessly, and so effectively. Here, Ferrell is playing his standard boob-naif (he gets in deep trouble for firing his gun at his desk, after his co-workers assure him that every cool cop lets off a "desk pop" now and then). But the performance isn't rote: Among comic actors, Ferrell is extremely alive to, and generous with, his colleagues. Part of his gift is the way he so willingly provides a reflective surface for them, instead of just hogging the spotlight.
He does that here for Eva Mendes, who plays Alan's long-suffering wife, Dr. (yes, Dr.) Sheila Gamble. When Alan brings Terry home with him -- who is, of course, gobsmacked by the wife's beauty and charm -- she greets them at the door in a knockout floral dress that shows off her stunning décolletage. Alan frowns, asking her why she insists on coming to the dinner table "dressed like a hobo." Mendes warms to this faux-abuse -- her performance is sexy, funny and game, and though her role is relatively small, she's never relegated to the role of arm candy.
Wahlberg responds well to Ferrell too, but of course in a different way. He's so prickly that he's sometimes difficult to watch: He dresses down a meek officemate in a manner that's particularly cruel -- not even cruel enough to be funny, and yet I think that's the point. Wahlberg opens his mouth and something nasty invariably comes out, a grand switch from the earnest-cop types he's so often played. And often, he is exceedingly funny, partly because he's not trying to be. He's the straight man whose persistent state of annoyance gets the laughs, and Ferrell willingly opens the door to that.
I laughed a lot during The Other Guys, generally at jokes that are almost impossible to replicate in print, dumb little fillips that would fall to tatters if you described them in words. (Some of them involve a turn by one of the movie's many fine second bananas, Michael Keaton, who plays Allen and Terry's understandably grouchy boss.) And often, that's how the best jokes work, hitting you upside the head like a boomerang you thought you didn't see coming. The Other Guys has lots of those moments, and in terms of its craftsmanship and offhanded smarts, it's certainly distinguishable from most other comedies on the landscape this summer. I still can't be sure, though, if it's just a few notches above mediocrity or if it's truly brilliant. In 10 years, maybe we'll know for sure. But for right now, having a few gratuitous, unbidden laughs is enough.