Viewed in
2011
Formats
DVD (theatrical)
Premise
Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg star as two desk-bound police officers who try to be the new NYPD hotshots.
Liked
Some of the silly comedy.
Disliked
The rest of the silly comedy.
Thoughts
A classic case of the best scenes were in the trailers.
Some of the scenes and moments were very funny and caused me to laugh out loud. Will Ferrell was the comedy MVP of the cast, with a repressed nerdy performance that showed off his versatility. I loved the scene of him inexplicably shouting "America!" while speeding in his Prius.
The good thing about having so many known actors in the cast was that there was a recognizable face around every corner, usually doing something goofy. Michale Keaton's running gag of using TLC song titles as cliches was lame, but very funny. The bad thing about having so many faces was that everyone was pretty much underused, especially Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson (I would totally green-light a spinoff with just the two of them).
Sadly, there were plenty of boring and unfunny segments. The running gags of Eva Mendes as a "plain" wife, the cop-wife drama satire, the obligatory buddy cop arc, and the convoluted financial scam subplot all fell flat. Wahlberg had some funny moments, but could have done more if he had better material than just being the angry one. One pet peeve of mine is when movies mix cheesy over-the-top comedy with expensive special effects and action done seriously.
Easily the worst part was when director Adam McKay inserted animated stats criticizing the current American financial woes and inequalities during the credits. First of all, why make the ending of an action-comedy a total bummer? Second, I came here to see comedic actors doing silly cop antics, what does data on the U.S. government bailout have to do with the movie's central theme? It was a pretentious and inane mess.
With a story that basically served as a laundry line to pin two hours of jokes that worked 60% of the time, I found it very uneven and just entertaining enough, even after lowered expectations.
What I would change
Shortened the second hour by twenty minutes, taken out the animated stats during credits.
