The Other Guys Movie (Lawd Help Us)

So I'm currently at my sister's new home in Atlanta, Georgia helping her unpack and set up her house. After a few long days of hefting boxes and secretly throwing things away that I know are expired or useless, I wanted to vegetate on a movie - nothing too serious or thought provoking. I wanted something as light and refreshing as a breeze on a hot day in Georgia. Someone had mentioned that The Other Guys starring Mark Wahlburg and Will Ferrell was funny in a stupid sort of way and it was recently posted in Netflix's instant play selection. Hoping for stupidity and laughter, I clicked on my demise. 

In listening to stand-up comedy and watching comedic movies and tv shows, I've learned that the comedic trends in our society lean one of two ways: 

The first is becoming a rare beauty and occurs when writers with a keen wit observe the nuances of human interaction and construct jokes based on those observations. I felt that Dumb and Dumber and Napoleon Dynamite harnessed the hilarity of social faux pas and different social dynamics despite having pretty stupid humor at times. 

The second one, the lazier one, occurs when people push the boundaries of decency and exploit what society considers to be vulgar in an attempt to extract a shock laugh. Often times, when people are shocked or offended or disgusted in a public setting, they release a laugh to diffuse those emotions. Comedy of this sort inevitably degrades into jokes about private parts, derogatory racial or sexist slurs, pushing boundaries of sexuality, and essentially the adult form of "poopoo peepee hehehehe" kinds of jokes. There is no real comedy or talent hiding amidst the shock. 

Unfortunately, this kind of humor was all the first hour of The Other Guys had to offer. I can't say about the second hour because I hadn't laughed once during this "comedy"and thus it didn't earn my dedication to the second hour. The plot or character development didn't draw in the viewer and the theme hadn't even wandered into Orange County in search of the set. 

In a nutshell, there's more than one way to pay for something. Even if this movie is free, don't pay for it with your time and attention. You'd be better off chewing on tin foil for a couple of hours.