With “The Other Guys” you could feel McKay start to shift from purely high concept madness to something more impassioned and nuanced. Yes, the idea of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as a pair of mismatched cops is really good, but McKay’s handling of machismo-soaked heroism (exemplified by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson’s incredible performances), and the leniency of the United States government towards white collar crime, is what makes the movie so powerful. (It’s easy to miss this stuff, too, even if you stuck around for the animated civics lesson during the credits.)
Both in his visual sophistication and thematic interests, McKay was starting to stand out from the crowd of Apatow-appointed comedy filmmakers.
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