Fangor

First off Ferrel is a hit or miss actor, he can be excellent or just stupid, so I guess I mostly blame Adam McKay for this poor execution. And Wahlberg should just stay away from comedy.

When writing comedy for film there are two things you do not do. You do not explain the joke and you do not telegraph the joke. Doing this will spoil the joke. If you are a professional writer you should know this. These basic concepts are constantly broken with each and every joke in this movie. It's over the top, but in a bad way. All I could hear was "This is a joke. We are being funny. Please laugh when the sign that says 'Laugh Now' lights up."

When you are pointing out the fact that you are trying to be funny. You are insulting the intelligence of the audience. Let the watcher decide if your joke is funny or not."This was a smart idea..." Yes, we got the pun already. ha. ha. If I think the joke was bad or did not get it, let it pass. I might find the next joke funny. Don't hit me over the head with it. The movie also has the bad taste to beat dead horses. Jokes that where mildly amusing at best the first time around where repeated, often several times. The second time you know it's going to be a running joke and the third and so on,then it's just painful. Comedy is supposed to be spontaneous, take you off guard and if it's also witty, then it really hits home. This movie does neither.

What really boggles me though is after sitting through this movie, getting increasingly bored by it at a steady pace. It ends with a political statement. After the movie goes out of it's way to make sure I can't take it seriously, even as a comedy. It then has the audacity to try and make a point. By then I couldn't care less about anything coming from this movie. It had already lost my attention.

I have only two possible explanations for this movie. Either it was written by an amateur, or the entire movie is a scriptwriters inside joke. Realizing this is the writer/director behind stepbrothers, which was stupid, but at the same time undeniably hilarious. I know he can do better, so I have to conclude it's a stumbling attempt at the later.

**Minor spoiler** It was clear already from the two super-cops that the movie tries to poke fun at the genre, but it really got to me with the explosion scene. It's so overplayed and the point is so painfully obvious that it simply does not work. Everyone knows (ok a few people might not, IE. children) that Hollywood physics are laughable. It's one thing to spoof that, but it's another to drag on about it. You are undoing the punchline of your own joke. And don't get me started on the final shootout scene, it's not even worth bothering with. **End spoiler**