Another Will Ferrell/Adam McKay collaboration is on the horizon, the duo moving on from lampooning news anchors and NASCAR drivers to a new buddy-cop flick The Other Guys . In the past it was Ferrell’s gleeful idiocy and braggadocio that made characters like Ron Burgundy so quotable; here, he’s relegated as the bespectacled straight man to Mark Wahlberg’s peacock-imitating alpha male.
The two desk jockeys are thrust into the field by an unidentifiable plot that somehow involves Steve Coogan, a conference room shoot-out, and Ferrell completely fumbling through attempts to stop a man from jumping off of a building. Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson essentially look to be playing parodies of themselves, spitting out uber-cop speak (to Ferrell’s geeky delight) and ramming a police car straight through a double-decker bus. Rob Riggle and Damon Wayans Jr. show up as yet another police duo, and Eva Mendes plays Ferrell’s extremely busty and beautiful wife.
The trailer depends heavily on slapstick (like Ferrell slapping Wahlberg with a wooden gun), and there are actually disconcertingly few laughs, at least until Ferrell goes batshit crazy when he misinterprets a good cop/bad cop routine.
Watch the trailer below, and let us know what you think: can McKay and Ferrell breathe some life into the stale buddy action comedy genre?
The Other Guys lands in theaters August 6, 2010.