The Other Guys, the New Heroes

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg try to make "ponzi-scheme-action-adventure-comedy-political-satire" a thing.

There are two ways to become the most hated person in New York: accidentally shoot Derek Jeter or steal $50 billion from your fellow Americans. Since Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) does the former (The line “You should have shot A-Rod!” earned a round of applause from the Toronto-based audience), The Other Guys’ villain has some serious embezzling to do. And embezzle, steal, and ponzi-scheme (it’s a verb now) he does.

The Other Guys tells the tale of, well, the other guys: the pen pushers, the paper clerks, the guys who stay behind on the call. But when NYPD’s finest, P.K. Highsmith (The Rock – sorry, Dwayne Johnson) and Christopher Danson (Samuel L. Jackson), jump to their deaths (a hilarious hubristic choice to “aim for the bushes”), a hero-sized void is left for the boys in blue: who will be NYC’s new heroes? Or more importantly, who will be NYC’s new villain? The Big Apple has seen a few great ones, but after 2008, the serial-killing psycho is no longer the big bad wolf. In a post-bailout world, we want revenge on only one type of man: the Bernie Madoffs.

The Other Guys is the first ponzi-scheme action movie pitting two average Joes against corporate espionage, embezzlement, and international fraud. After the two typical American heroes fall and crash – not unlike the economy – their replacements, Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Hoitz, bumble around NYC, trying to save the NYPD pension fund from being sucked dry by twee British schemer David Ershon (Steve Coogan). The Other Guys has its moments, largely due to the sheer physical hilarity of Ferrell’s comedy and Wahlberg’s perpetual pissed-off glare. But the movie as a whole careens off in another direction as the film’s credits take on bailout politics with a Michael Moore-like intensity matched with Al Gore-style graphics. Yes, this is an action-adventure-comedy-political-satire. And like its genre, its humour is stretched at times. Directed by Saturday Night Live alum Adam MacKay (Talladega Nights), an hour and a half in, Ferrell and Walberg’s banter begins to wear thin (like Ershon’s alibis, or perhaps my puns?).

But if we move beyond the one-line zingers, The Other Guys might be trying to breed a new kind of hero. In an action-adventure-comedy-political-satire, why couldn’t Highsmith and Danson save the day? Unlike in other action plots, typical heroes didn’t bring Madoff down. Whistleblowers like Harry Markopolos were ignored, much like Gamble’s attempts to draw attention to Ershon’s suspicious activities. Federal agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to question Madoff’s unnervingly steady 45-degree gains, just as everyone from the police to the FBI ignore our mismatched pair’s detective work. A ponzi-scheme-action-adventure can’t be won by the establishment because that’s what enabled it to begin with. The battles in this genre need to be won by everyday Joes, because they were the ones who lost the most when the bubble burst.

In the end, Gamble and Hoitz live up to their extraordinarily ordinary standards, gaining hero status and a Bullit-style, muscle car to boot. But these are the new Steve McQueens: their ride is now powered by vegetable oil. You never know where a ponzi scheme will strike, but it tends to be on the Upper East Side. And with the price of gas these days, the average guy can only afford the commute in a hybrid.