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This is the fourth feature that Will Ferrell and writer-director Adam McKay have collaborated on, and once again they deliver laugh-out-loud if ultimately disposable comedy with mixed messages about arrested male development.
The Other Guys is most authentically itself when it indulges in a free-form but nonetheless highly disciplined silliness that has the effect of dissolving, rather than piquing, whatever worldly anger or frustration you may be harboring.
Through it all, Ferrell is as Ferrell does. He's a non sequitur with frizz.
Deteriorates into something resembling Rush Hour 3.
In terms of flat-out nonstop laughter, it's the best comedy of the summer.
At times, there's an "everything but the kitchen sink" quality to the joke grab. But it works.
Ferrell hasn't been this funny in years.
The first 30 minutes of the film, where this concept is really milked to the max, easily makes for some of the funniest comedy of the year.
The Other Guys is the sort of movie that generates some of its best jokes quietly in the background or as quick-hit throwaway lines, while other terrific gags are defiantly over the top.
Not all of the gags pan out, but when they do they get more than a few chuckles.
Juxtaposes the excesses of our unregulated financial sector with the excesses of the buddy cop movie.
There are quite a few fun and hilarious moments to be had thanks to a knockout supporting cast, but there's a reason we've never followed "the other guys" before.
Even the credits at the end of the film are smart, detailing the inequities of CEO pay and the government bailout of AIG and large banking firms.
The Other Guys isn't as loose and free associative as its predecessors, planting Ferrell in the middle of a routine mismatched cop plot that doesn't permit him to combust.
Stop the press! Multimillionaire actors unite to skewer deep-pocketed bureaucrats and billion-dollar blowouts! Does Adam McKay's The Other Guys herald the end of Hollywood's age of excess? Hmm, not quite.
A fast-punching farce with a serious devotion to the random.
The balance of action and humour is off here and by dialing down the moments of ridiculousness from his other films with Ferrell, McKay has made them all the more glaringly odd.
...a misfire of impressively epic proportions.
The Other Guys, like the testosterone-heavy "frat-pack" films which Ferrell is known for, is a buddy-cop film that's at once savvy, nostalgic, irreverent, and heartfelt.
The Other Guys has surprisingly energetic action sequences, shoot'em-ups and car chases, and even a bit of a whodunit plot...
It runs out of steam in the final third but The Other Guys is constantly kept afloat by a grand cast that includes Michael Keaton as station captain Gene Mauch and Eva Mendes as Gamble's smouldering wife Sheila.
After a string of largely mirth-free months at the multiplex, this might well be a late entry as one of the comedies of the summer.
Explosive action sequences collide with polished one-liners and some amusing supporting performances.
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