Nathan’s Movie Collection: The Other Guys (2010)
“Did you yell ‘America’ when you hit the accelerator?”
Note: Most of these movies have been around for a considerable amount of time, so assume there will be spoilers all throughout.
“OK, first off: a lion, swimming in the ocean. Lions don't like water. If you placed it near a river or some sort of fresh water source, that make sense. But you find yourself in the ocean, 20 foot wave, I'm assuming off the coast of South Africa, coming up against a full grown 800 pound tuna with his 20 or 30 friends, you lose that battle. You lose that battle 9 times out of 10. And guess what, you've wandered into our school of tuna and we now have a taste of lion. We've talked to ourselves. We've communicated and said 'You know what, lion tastes good, let's go get some more lion'. We've developed a system to establish a beach-head and aggressively hunt you and your family and we will corner your pride, your children, your offspring.” - Will Ferrell as Allen “Gator” Gamble in The Other Guys
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was released into the world when I was a teenager, the absolute sweet spot for a movie like that to get its hooks in me. That, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers—all from the minds of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay—were unsurprisingly influential as well. If you were cornered against your will by a teenage boy anytime from 2003 to roughly 2010, you probably had lines from these films repeated in your face. There’s also a few non-Ferrell/McKay selections in this genre I like call Teen Boy Movie—nope, we’ll think of something else later. The other titles would be Wedding Crashers and The Hangover.
I think the Ferrell/McKay movies have aged better because they’ve always been aware of how ridiculous and borderline sociopathic the protagonists are. Not that the other movies from this time weren’t, but the worst ones also want you to think these guys kinda rule and it’d be fun to hang out with them. I personally have nothing against Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn, but the men they play in Wedding Crashers should be thrown in prison.
I remember catching this one with my cousin and rewatching it multiple times over the next couple of weeks. If the ending credits didn’t give it away, The Other Guys has more on its mind but it is ostensibly a big, stupid comedy which I say as the biggest compliment. My last entry, Hot Rod, is also the kind of big, stupid comedy that we get less and less of these days. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar was the last time I saw one in that vein and I really loved it. They’re the kind of movies I completely understand having absolutely no patience for and those tend to be my favorite kind of comedies.
The Other Guys kicks off with two star detectives in the NYPD played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson leaping to their death from a building trying to land a cool jump. The joke in the movie up until that point is that these star detectives routinely destroy the city while chasing petty criminals and are praised for it. Like Icarus, they fly straight into the ground or something like that, I never read the Icarus book.
Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) are a few rungs lower in the NYPD, Allen being a forensic accountant and Terry a disgruntled detective who’s infamous for accidentally shooting Derek Jeter in the leg during the World Series. I’ve always loved Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg is someone I enjoy in concentrated doses1. Guys like Wahlberg though are always funnier to me when their characters are being restrained, literally or metaphorically. Terry wants to be a hotshot detective so bad so taking him down a few pegs and sticking him with someone as bland and nauseatingly sincere as Allen is perfect. The reveal later that Allen used to be a pimp named Gator and is now married to Eva Mendes is so funny and Wahlberg plays Terry losing his mind over it so well. The other scene that always gets me is when they go to visit Allen’s ex-girlriend Christinith (Natalie Zea) and Terry’s left alone with her husband Hal (Brett Gelman). Whenever Gelman shows up in anything, he’s always at his funniest making his scene partners uncomfortable and Wahlberg is the perfect target.
I was a teenager in the mid-2000s so of course I’ve always loved Will Ferrell. I get how some people are put off by all his Kicking and Screaming2 but I think in his best roles, Ferrell makes these lunatics weirdly sympathetic. It’s a shame him and McKay had a falling out because I think they’ve done some of their best work together.
McKay’s since gone on to prestige filmmaking, meaning he’s won an Oscar and continues to be up for them now every time he puts a movie out. He’s taken on more serious subjects in recent years, but he’s always been a solid filmmaker. A lot of other dumb comedies from that time were shot by folks who thought pointing a camera at famous funny people was enough. Watching the early McKay movies, there’s a lot of great editing which can make or break a comedy. One of my favorite stories about the production of Anchorman is that Paul Thomas Anderson (a name that may or may not come up next month) was involved as a producer early on and dropped out when the script got too weird for him3.
There’s a hint of what’s to come with McKay’s career during the closing credits of The Other Guys where we see statistics laying out the factors leading to the current (as of 2010) economic situation in the US, which is how all comedies should end really. It’s not completely out of left field since the movie is about Allen and Terry investigating a scaffolding permit violation that leads to them stumbling into a massive embezzlement case involving an accounting firm, billions of dollars, and the NYPD. There’s never that level of sermonizing in the movie though so it’s a weird decision that doesn’t really fit with what’s come just before it.
If McKay’s gotten dragged for anything in recent years, it’s the fact that the sermonizing is now front and center. I think The Big Short is where it’s been most effective. On paper, Vice and Don’t Look Up should be some of my favorite movies of all time and while I like those movies more than some, I’d put them along with The Big Short into a series of films called the “Oh my God, we get it” trilogy. There’s only so many times you can hammer the point home before someone says, “Oh my God, we get it.” If you’ve ever had the experience talking to someone you completely agree with and they’re still trying to pick a fight with you, can I interest you in the “Oh my God, we get it” trilogy?
Don’t Look Up in particular is the worst offender and as a metaphor for climate change, it falls apart if you think about it for longer than thirty seconds. I appreciate what McKay’s trying to say but he gets hung up taking shots at daytime TV and pop stars and when he does go after billionaires and politicians, the caricatures he’s drawn are so absurd that none of it works for me. If I adjust my expectations to a dumb comedy about the end of the world, it plays better in my head and there are some genuinely hilarious performances. There’s also some emotionally powerful moments, like the final dinner scene where Timothée Chalamet leads everyone in a prayer. I was really moved by it because it’s the only time I felt like I was watching real human beings.
All that said, I’m still an Adam McKay fan and I hope there’s a future where him and Ferrell bury the hatchet and make another banger, as I heard some kids say. Either way, I’m still going to see whatever he makes next because as I’ve said before and I’ll say again, Adam McKay is really good at making movies. I think he’s still doing a lot of interesting work; I just wish he would stop trying to make the next Dr. Strangelove or Network.
For now, The Other Guys is his most underrated movie in my opinion and to close things out, here’s the rest of Allen’s Lion-Tuna monologue4 I quoted in the beginning:
“We will construct a series of breathing apparatus with kelp. We will be able to trap certain amounts of oxygen. It's not gonna be days at a time. An hour? Hour forty-five? No problem. That will give us enough time to figure out where you live, go back to the sea, get some more oxygen, and stalk you. You just lost at your own game. You're outgunned and out-manned…did that go the way you thought it was gonna go? Nope.”
Making his second appearance in Nathan’s Movie Collection after The Depahhted where he’s used perfectly.
hur hur hur, get it
Which is hilarious coming from PTA, although from what I’ve read at one point there was a musical number with sharks.
Monologue’s a fancy word, this is Will Ferrell riffing.