Starring Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, and Michael Keaton. Rated 14A.

You either get the weird genius of Will Ferrell or you don’t. If you do, there are any number of reasons to appreciate The Other Guys.

Director and cowriter Adam McKay (a Ferrell regular best known for directing and writing Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy) manages to take full advantage of his favourite leading man while putting a relatively fresh spin on yet another thinly disguised version of The Odd Couple.

This time around, our mismatched duo are a pair of New York cops who drive each other crazy with their personal habits. Ferrell plays Allen Gamble, an uptight desk jockey who screams like a girl and hums the theme from S.W.A.T. while he works. Allen is so clueless that his boss (a delightfully exasperated Michael Keaton) is forced to replace his regular weapon with a wooden gun. Mark Wahlberg is Terry Holtz, a streetwise detective whose promising career takes a nosedive when he accidentally shoots Yankee great Derek Jeter in the leg. It drives him crazy that his nerdy partner is a chick magnet who has an impossibly gorgeous—and impossibly understanding—wife (an inspired Eva Mendes).

Although Allen is perfectly content to crunch numbers, Terry is itching to get back to serious police work. Thanks to Allen’s obsession with petty regulations, they stumble on a promising case of stock fraud involving a shady financial guru (Steve Coogan).

The bad news? There are some logistical problems with the convoluted plot, and it doesn’t help that Wahlberg’s performance as a tough guy with a hidden talent for ballet never really takes off. The good news? Ferrell—who seems determined to make up for such recent misfires as Land of the Lost—is at the top of his game. It’s a genuine pleasure to watch him play in the kind of comic sandbox he knows best.