In by far the funnier of the summer's two comedies featuring an accountant (Dinner for Schmucks being the other), Will Ferrell returns to form as Detective Allen Gamble, a NYPD numbers cruncher and desk jockey who gets odd-coupled with Mark Wahlberg's gung-ho loser Detective Terry Hoitz to crack a vague and complicated case involving Steve Coogan as a crooked financier.
More to the point are such absurdist non-sequiturs and digressions as Gamble's flashbacks to his college days, a cameo by Derek Jeter that should please Sox fans, a freeze-frame drunk montage that puts The Hangover to shame, and a running joke about the band TLC.
What's not so funny is the financial disaster of the past couple of years — director Adam McKay was smart to use it simply as a MacGuffin to string along the film's filigree of steady laughs. But if you want some gratuitous indignation, stick around for the scandalous statistics at the end.
