The Other Guys (2010) Blu-ray Movie Review

"I'm like a peacock, you gotta let me fly!"

Published
Updated
Producer / Publisher: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
3 minutes & 24 seconds read time
The Other Guys (2010) Blu-ray Movie Review 99



I generally find Will Ferrell led movies to be hit or miss. For every Anchorman and Step Brothers there is a Semi Pro or Land of the Lost - the only caveat being that when they are funny, they're really funny. I'm glad to say that The Other Guys falls into the positive category.

When star cops P.K Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) meet an unfortunate demise in the line of duty, Detectives Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) try their best to step up. However, their complete ineptness continues to hold them back.

In the vein of Rush Hour and Lethal Weapon, The Other Guys is a half comedy/ half action 'buddy cop' flick, filled with random humour and pop culture references. The cast, including some really top improvisational comedians, are all given time to shine and the story and action scenes are more than reasonable enough to sustain interest.

Of note is this Blu-ray includes both the theatrical and extended versions of the film. I elected to watch the extended version which features an extra nine minutes of footage. The pacing of the film is pretty 'off', but I suspect the theatrical version is more balanced in this respect. There were a few issues with the seamlessness of the seamless branching however, with both my Sony standalone player and a relatives Panasonic Blu-ray player exhibiting some audible 'clicks' and a brief jump at two join points throughout.

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Video

The Other Guys is presented in a full screen aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (its original aspect ratio), encoded with AVC MPEG-4 compression.

For a recently produced film, The Other Guys looks as good as you would expect, but the slick production values elevate this one a little higher again. The image is sharp and detailed with a very fine layer of film grain, which gives it a bit of grittiness. Colours are bright and bold, and the colour timing has been tweaked to perfection. Make no mistake - whilst the film may predominantly be a comedy, it was shot to emulate the best modern action film you've likely seen.

Overall, a pretty fantastic transfer that does not disappoint.

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Audio

The main audio track is encoded in lossless DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, at 24 bits.

I feel a bit torn here. The audio track is fine enough and quite aggressive at times, but it feels a bit light and anemic at others. It seems that the audio mixers only felt like making the film sound like an action movie when it was acting like an action movie.

I had no other real issues with the soundtrack here, dialogue is good and the music and pop tracks (including 'Never Gonna Give You Up' by Rick Astley) are mixed at an appropriate level throughout. Bass is rather heavy when called upon.

Overall, a pretty good track and likely a good translation of the original mix.




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Extras

For a film that plays it a bit different, it's appropriate that the Audio Commentaries does too; it's provided by the mothers of director Adam McKay, star Will Ferrell and executive producer Chris Henchy. It's a funny concept and a bit different, but for those wanting to know a bit more about the film would be advised to skip this and watch the remaining extras.

As per Sony's usual tact, the bulk of the extras are made up of short featurettes.First is the nearly Line O Rama which features some fast cut alternate versions of improved dialogue, Flash Forwards extrapolates the background of some people in the background of the story, Alternate Action shows some alternative camera angles for some of the stunt scenes, Wasn't That? lingers on some of the bit part players in the film that you've likely seen in a few other Will Ferrell comedies.

Crash and Burn is a brief behind the scenes feature on some of the action stunts and pretty explosions, Why Are There Brits In This Movie? is a tongue in cheek interview with the straight playing Steve Coogan, Rob Riggle Likes To Party features the pretty hilarious improve comedian boasting of his personal exploits, Mark Wahlbergs Eating Contest Entourage and We Shouldn't Kiss Chicken seem to be some sort of bizarre on set game between cast and crew in which the viewer isn't really let in on.

Bed Bath and Beyond consists of some more cut Michael Keaton footage in one of the more stranger (but hilarious) aspects of the film. Extreme Close Ups solely features some deliberately poorly framed interview footage with the cast. Finally, we have Everyone Hates the DVD Guy, because no one really likes a camera in their face 24/7.

Next up are 30 minutes of Deleted Scenes of varying quality. Most of the stuff is decent, but cut because they go on for too long and would make the already poorly paced film even worse. That said, in isolation there is some real gold here.

Lastly, we have a Pimps Don't Cry Music Video by Cee-Lo Green, and a pretty funny, but rather shortGag Reel.

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The Other Guys (2010) Blu-ray Movie Review 100

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Ben joined the TweakTown team in 2008 and has since reviewed 100s of movies. Ben is based in Australia and has covered entertainment news and reviews since 2002. A student of film, Ben brings a wide understanding of the medium to the latest happenings in entertainment circles and the latest blockbuster theatrical reviews.

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