The Other Guys
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: August 6, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It's a comedy of manhood for the age of emasculation. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
The funniest movie of the year. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
The Other Guys finds McKay back to trying something wildly ambitious with his comedy, and largely succeeding. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Great casting takes The Other Guys most of the way: Ferrell draws a wealth of good material from his character's oddball ineffectuality, and he partners perfectly with Wahlberg, who's always best at his most incredulous. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
This summer's funniest movie. Read full review
80
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
The Other Guys isn't easy to peg. It's not a comedy that loosens you up and mellows you out; it works by needling you progressively into a state of anxiety. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Nimbly blending comedy and action -- with an affectionate slo-mo nod to John Woo -- McKay does his best work to date here. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The film's first 15 minutes are by far the most fun (and could be the best quarter-hour of any movie released this year), with Samuel L. Jackson and The Rock letting it all hang out. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
So hilarious that even longtime Ferrell haters (me) can't resist it. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
At its core, a perceptive satire of the interpersonal boiling points in buddy-cop pictures. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Ferrell is effortlessly uproarious. And watching hardass Wahlberg, in his first starring shot at farce, shake his sillies out is not to be missed. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Here the filmmakers are in fine fettle, which goes a long way to make much of the low-brow silliness and slapstick infectious. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicRandy Cordova
A surprising, laugh-out-loud take on the old buddy-cop genre. It's sneaky and smartly funny, offering an almost perfect balance of action and comedy. That's the good news. Then there's the matter of the movie's disheartening final 25 minutes. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It's loud, raunchy, semicoherent and stuffed to the bursting point with heavy weaponry and car chases, most of which involve a red, cocaine-covered Prius that's been pressed into service as a police car. But Adam McKay's comedy of chaos, which he wrote with Chris Henchy, can also be very funny. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJoshua Katzman
Michael Keaton is a stitch as an emasculated police captain moonlighting as a retail store manager. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's a mixed bag with plenty of gags that fall flat, not a comic masterpiece. But it's got tremendous zing, a sense of mischief and a big heart, more than enough to mark it as a delicious shot of caffeinated ice cream, and the summer season's funniest comedy. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
Like some silly summer song that can't be shaken from the mind, this is a catchy enterprise, no better than it tries to be and no less funny. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Like a padded "Saturday Night Live" sketch. What would have been very funny for 15 minutes, and pretty funny for 45, doesn't maintain the standard over the course of a feature-length film. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
For a good hour, this is the picture Kevin Smith was trying to make with "Cop Out." Read full review
63
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
It's amusingly off-the-wall, but entirely too cluttered to come together. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
As with most Ferrell projects, there's nothing profound going on in The Other Guys. It's just a bit of good, stupid fun, had at the expense of an uber-formulaic genre that has long been ripe for the spoofing. But it also works. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
For the most part, The Other Guys is seriously silly stuff, in the best sense. Read full review
60
EmpireJames White
Skewers the action genre while also finding room for sheer madness. We've still yet to see the equal of Ron Burgundy, but this latest offering is a wonky yet worthy addition to the McKay/Ferrell pantheon. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid Fear
The film, meanwhile, gives Wahlberg and Ferrell beautiful opportunities to turn their anger-mismanagement-meets-milquetoast act into an absurdist version of Abbott and Costello. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineAmy Nicholson
It's dumb and consistently funny. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Wahlberg is surprisingly committed to the ridiculousness. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Opens strongly and front-loads its best gags into the first third of the film. After that, the jokes begin to repeat themselves, and the plot becomes mired in unintelligible details of the white-collar crime. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
A typical vehicle for Ferrell's atypical humor. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Have you ever seen a movie you half-liked a lot? Read full review
50
SlateJosh Levin
The Other Guys actually suffers by comparison to its own madcap opening sequence. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Raises expectations that it has no real inclination to fulfill. The movie's best bits would stand alone nicely on YouTube, or on Funnyordie.com, the comic video boutique of which Mr. McKay is an owner and where he sometimes dabbles in short-form hilarity. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
Starts out as a hilarious take on cop-movie cliches, then turns into Will Ferrell's own "Capitalism: A Love Story." Read full review
50
VarietyPeter Debruge
The laughs ultimately take a backseat to a convoluted white-collar crime story. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
There's a fine line between stupid comedy that's actually pretty smart and stupid comedy that's just dumb, and The Other Guys crosses the line - into realms of unredeeming dunderheadedness - more often than it should. Read full review
50
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
Following the clues, The Other Guys turns more hectic than antic, and somebody didn't pack enough comedy for this long trip. Read full review
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