There are people that we simply just find funny. What they say is only in addition to their look, their mannerisms, their tone of voice, their delivery; all this combines to form a perfect storm of funny walking around on two legs. I will admit unashamedly that I find Will Ferrell hysterical. Oh I’m aware of those who don’t. Believe I’m aware. My wife is merely situationally amused by Will Ferrell and is horrified that I not only made her go see Step Brothers in the theatre, but own it and quote it. I find him inexplicably hilarious. I am his target audience and for the most part his films (we’ll here just ignore Semi-Pro and Kicking & Screaming…and Land of the Lost…I said MOST PART) are all in my ludicrously large home library. Anchorman is the best comedy of the last ten years. Debate.
Right, none of that is actually about this movie though which pairs Ferrell as a tight-knit accountant for the police department paired with Mark Wahlberg who’s been busted back to desk duty after an accidental shooting of a celebrity which I won’t spoil. It’s the clichéd buddy comedy/mismatched cop partners dynamic and the plot is really secondary….until it isn’t (we’ll get back here). For the first half of the movie they let Wahlberg and Ferrell riff off of each other and it is fantastic. The first half of the movie is a solid 10.
Then they seem to want to make the movie a real cop drama and weave into it statements about corporate malfeasance and while I hate big corporations as much as the next angry disaffected person, that wasn’t where this movie needed to go. The laughs get thinner and spaced further out and the movie lasts at bare minimum 20 minutes longer than it needed to. By no means should this discourage anyone from going to see it because when it’s working, it’s gold. I’m not in a happy head place right now and I’m a tough laugh even for a Ferrell groupie and I rolled. However, the movie can’t sustain that momentum the whole way through and falls short of his best films.
8.0/10
Killing Time 