cinematic roots of: ‘The Other Guys’

No movie springs from a vacuum. There are always influences from past examples of the genre, from the previous work of the filmmakers and stars, even from similar films that don’t quite work. If you want to understand where a movie is coming from, take a look at where it’s coming from.

In The Other Guys, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are ordinary NYPD detectives trying to move out of the shadow of two superstar detectives, while also trying not to kill each other. This flick sprang from (among other films):

• Step Brothers (2008), also from the team of writer-director Adam McKay and star Will Ferrell, which uses a similar sense of deadpan humor to tell the tale of the rivalry of adult stepbrothers (Ferrell and John C. Reilly).

• The Departed (2006), the serious cop drama in which Mark Wahlberg plays the surprising comic relief.

• Starsky & Hutch (2004), a reboot from TV and a buddy cop comedy gone wrong; Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson flounder through unfunny nostalgia as the titular cops.

• 48 Hrs. (1982), one of the foundations of the genre and still one of the best buddy crime comedies, in which Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte have two days to solve a murder.