Arresting development in 'The Other Guys'

Timing is everything in comedy, and that goes for release dates as well. "The Other Guys," starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as hapless New York City cops, is a welcome arrival in the middle of this laugh-dry summer. It's also cannily topical, riffing on so many current events that it could have been wrapped up earlier this week.

It isn't just the major jokes, as when forensic accountant Allen Gamble (Ferrell) cheerfully reminds an SEC investigator of failures like Lehman Brothers and AIG, or when hotheaded Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg) enters counseling for having accidentally shot Derek Jeter. It's the minor ones, too, like a short visual primer on Ponzi schemes.

But it's also a broad parody of the buddy-cop film, with Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson as roof-jumping, bullet-pumping bad boys. When those two botch a big case (it's the film's most brilliantly timed gag), Allen and Terry see their chance to become the new heroes. They immediately go after a big fish, Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan), a corrupt financier with even bigger problems than they imagined.

Nobody is exactly stretching here: Ferrell again plays the hulking dweeb, Wahlberg serves mostly as the straight man, and Coogan is, as usual, amusingly amused. But everyone is doing what he does best, including a terrific Michael Keaton as a harried police chief and Eva Mendes as Allen's incomprehensibly gorgeous wife. Even director and co-writer Adam McKay gets into the act - another hilarious split-second.