Full disclosure: I am not a big Will Ferrell fan. Night at the Roxbury was one of the funniest movies of the 90s, but I find that he tries to hard to fit his persona into every role he plays--like a less funny Adam Sandler. While there were glipses of this in The Other Guys, it actually worked out pretty well for once. Though it wasn't the kind of uproarious comedy it was billed as, it had its moments.
While I'm inserting caveats, I should also ad that I'm not big on Mark Wahlberg. Not that he's a bad actor. He just doesn't tend to pick great roles. Like Ferrell, he actually fit this role well. Wahlberg as a wannabe action hero and Ferrell as an accountant with a seedy past somehow seems appropriate.
On the face of it, the movie is as simple as it gets. A couple of desk jockies trying to bust the bad guys. However, there were some fairly obvious anti-corporate themes lurking in the foreground. After all, bankers ripping off a police pension fund isn't exactly politically neutral. In an odd twist, the movie attempted to explain the financial crisis (incorrectly) by flashing a bunch of graphs and factoids on the screen during the credits. I've never seen a movie get MORE political during the credits. Definitely a movie that's quite in line with the zeitgeist.
