The Other Guys

Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay continue their fruitful partnership of serviceable and occasionally brilliant but often flawed comedies with The Other Guys, a send up of buddy cop movies (which are themselves already pretty silly in nature) with an odd sense of humor and an even odder political stance against the seedy nature of big money in America. The bad guys in the story are basically using fraud to cover up losses, and the entire end credits of the film feature animated information about things like how Ponzi schemes work and the average salaries of CEOs in comparison to regular workers over time. This is probably the wrong movie to throw an issue like this into, though I appreciate the effort.

The movie starts out bombastically with a ridiculous car chase through New York City as Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson attempt to stop some drug dealers. It's one of the most wonderfully absurd action scenes played for laughs I've seen, and it's a great start for the movie. I would watch a whole film about Johnson and Jackson as these superhero cop characters. But it's not about them, it's about the other guys, played by Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Ferrell plays a number cruncher and paperwork doer who'd rather stay in the office than chase bad guys, and Wahlberg was a promising young cop who had his career derailed after he shot a famous athlete. They're mostly the subject of ridicule, but they see an opportunity to make a big case after they arrest a businessman played by Steve Coogan and he is then kidnapped by armed thugs. People with money don't like Ferrell and Wahlberg sniffing around their affairs, and they are harassed at every turn by their fellow cops and other things working against them.

The structure of the story could have pretty much just been a regular buddy cop movie, but it's the specific weirdness of the situations and dialogue that make it a Will Ferrell comedy. The film just comes up with a ton of running gags and lets them ride, and some of them end up being pretty funny. Some of the better ones include all the horrible things that happen to the interior of Ferrell's Prius, his dark past, and Wahlberg's habit of studying fine arts so he can make fun of people who enjoy them. Some bits are weirder; Ferrell's innate attraction to beautiful women is cute but offset by what's basically an emotionally abusive marriage that's played for laughs.

Ferrell's mix of low key and very loud methods of being funny are in full effect and enjoyable as usual, and while I would say Wahlberg definitely isn't a natural comic actor (or a natural actor at all, really), his hit rate on one liners is generally pretty decent. Michael Keaton is great as the police captain, and his role is another I'd love to see revisited in a Rock/Jackson prequel. The movie is overstuffed to the point of bursting with recognizable comedic talent, and most of the cameos usually have at least one decent joke attached instead of just being their for their own sake. Ice-T's narration in particular is memorable. Not every joke is a success and I would have preferred a less self-serious plot, but it was a pretty fun movie.

Eastbound & Down - Season 2

If I had to pick one, the second season doesn't quite live up to the mostly brilliant first. But as a direct follow-up and the soul-searching middle part of a story (it's been picked up for a third and supposedly final season), Eastbound & Down season two was very good. It finds Kenny Powers in Mexico after his chance with Tampa Bay falls through, living off the spoils of cock fighting and his friend Stevie's stolen credit card. It's a new low in Kenny's life, but you wouldn't know it from the exterior, as he's still as arrogant, self righteous, and vulgar as ever. The best part of the show is still just listening to him narrate his own version of his life and curse people out for disappointing him over and over again. In terms of creating a character that's a total jerk but one you still can't help but love, it's still one of the best successes on television.

But the whole show isn't just Kenny strutting around, doing drugs, and chasing women. His destiny is to be a ballplayer again, and the thrust of the season is him getting a shot through a local baseball team. The manager knows who he is and wants to help him get back into the game, but Kenny is often his own worst enemy as he misjudges his relationships with others and has conflicts with the team owner. The plot follows a lot of the same beats as the first season, but it also does some new things including some exploration of why Kenny is the way he is that's particularly enlightening. It's basically the same mix of comedy, depressing moments, awesomely appropriate music, nudity, and entertaining cameos throughout these seven episodes, and the Mexican setting helps keep it fresh. Unlike the huge downer of the last finale, this one is more hopeful, and I'm really interested in seeing how things end up for our old buddy Kenny fuckin' Powers.

Eastbound & Down - Season 1

Eastbound & Down is the work of a whole lot of good comedic minds, and stars the suddenly pervasive and awesome Danny McBride as a former big league pitcher and current big league jerk who's forced to take a job teaching gym in his hometown as he struggles to mount a comeback. The first and possibly only season is short but sweet, with just six episodes to tell the story of Kenny Powers. Will Ferrell shows up a couple times as the owner of a car dealership along with a few other recognizable faces, but McBride is totally the main attraction, as he's created one of the better comedy protagonists in recent memory that I can think of. He never stops being an asshole, but you still totally root for him because his life is so freaking depressing as the world seems to be conspiring against him.

It's really more nuanced than you might expect from what could appear at first glance to be a trashy sitcom with cursing and nudity. He yells and curses all the time and is completely full of himself, but at times he shows some genuine human understanding (shortly before he screws things up again) and you have to wonder if life always craps on him because he's a jerk or if he's a jerk because life craps on him. It's hard not to have sympathy for someone who lost a dream all too soon, even if what they did while living it was a bad use of time. Besides all that though, it's a really funny show. Kenny's overzealous speeches, his rivalry with Craig Robinson (and especially the conclusion of that), Stevie's scary devotion to him, there's a lot of laughs to be had. The finale left me wanting more, not because there was a lot left open which there was, but because I just I'm not done enjoying the unique views of Kenny Powers.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

300 posts. I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of myself.

Talladega Nights was much funnier than I thought it would be. I'm not sure why my expectations were low, I guess I just might be growing out of stupid comedies a bit, but it wasn't as dumb as I assumed. They could have just made fun of rednecks and NASCAR for a couple hours, but there were lots of clever moments and pretty good wordplay that made it quite funny in spots. Even when characters were just insulting each other, the specific insults were usually pretty darn good. It was especially great hearing it from Ricky's two kids, who were horrible brats in the beginning but ended up as articulate gentlemen.

Will Ferrell's schtick of picking a random, usually sports related profession and doing a movie about it is getting a little tiring, but he's been likable whenever I've seen him on the screen (I just realized I've never seen one of his movies in theaters, which is weird), and does a good job carrying this movie. John C. Reilly plays his sidekick and best friend, who's very dedicated but completely lacks common sense. Sacha Baron Cohen is also good as the villain to the story. They use the character as a simple excuse for a lot of French and gay jokes, but he provides a lot of amusement as well. The rest of the cast also does a pretty good job keeping things funny, including known names like Michael Clarke Duncan and Amy Adams. The dialogue is a strong point of the script if the pacing isn't. It felt like Ricky spent too little time doing well and too much wallowing in his own failure before recovering in the obvious return-to-glory storyline. Instead of spending time establishing the situation, there were some pretty drawn-out scenes that were strictly for laughs, although I suppose I can't fault a comedy for having those. In the end, I liked the movie quite a bit.

Blades of Glory

Yes, Blades of Glory is a stupid movie. A very stupid one. But the cast is very talented at making people laugh, and the result is an enjoyable comedy. Will Ferrell is the obvious star, and he's in fine form. After showing he can act in real movies, he still hasn't lost the ability to create a character with his own quirks that is still part of his persona. He has plenty of great one-liners, although many were blown in the trailers. Some of the best stuff in the movie is his character, Chazz' sex addiction and his many tattoos representing trysts with famous skaters. Jon Heder, who shall forever be saddled with the memory of playing the titular protagonist of Napoleon Dynamite, didn't get much screen time in commercials, but he was actually pretty entertaining as the more grounded half of the main duo.

The movie has a lot of great people in smaller parts, all famous for their television work. SNL's Amy Poehler and Arrested Development's Will Arnett as the evil/creepy sibling skate team, The Office's Jenna Fischer as their docile sister, The Daily Show's Rob Corddry as the manager of a children's ice show. There's also a lot of cameos from famous skaters that help create a fun atmosphere. There's obviously nothing that special about the plot, there are lots of traditional plot devices and crap thrown in to justify it as a movie and not just a string of figure skating jokes. It's not great, but it works, and it all flies by pretty quickly. It seems like Ferrell's trying to make a character/movie for every celebrity profession, from news anchoring to NASCAR driving and now to pro skating. It usually works, and I don't mind having simple, fun movies like this.

Stranger than Fiction

Stranger than Fiction was a bit of a surprise for me. I thought I'd have some laughs, but I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did. It's definitely not the standard Will Ferrell comedy. He does some of his familiar stuff, but it's not what you usually see, and in addition to being funny, he shows some signs that he really does have some talent as an actor. The movie succeeds by being completely likable. The whole cast is pretty good, I like everyone that I recognized. The comedy is a good mix of smart dialogue and bizarre situations, and of course Ferrell's reactions to the voices he's hearing in his head.

The plot is interesting if not explained too well. The way it works and comes together is clever and unique. You never really are told exactly how this is all working, but it's okay to just let it happen. It's not about how Ferrell is a character in someone else's book, it's about what happens to his life because of it. It's just a cute movie that almost anyone could probably enjoy.