In 2010, Adam McKay re-teamed with his long-time collaborator Will Ferrell and made the buddy cop comedy movie The Other Guys. The film saw Ferrell team up with Mark Wahlberg as two mismatched cops with checkered pasts forced to team up to take down a drug lord. The film also had fantastic cameo performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as super-cops.
The Other Guys was a great success, picking up a Rotten Tomatoes score of 78-percent while also bringing in $170.9 million at the box office. On top of that, it was a crowd favorite, picking up multiple nominations at the Teen Choice Awards, while Ferrell and Wahlberg followed up with more films in the future.
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Pineapple Express (2008)
In 2008, as comedy arrived from the team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg called Pineapple Express. Directed by David Gordon Green, this comedy flipped the script and put the heroes on the other side of the law as Rogen is a process server who has to work with his drug dealer (James Franco) to escape dirty cops and hitmen after they witness an execution.
Pineapple Express also saw a breakout performance by Danny McBride as a hitman who ends up helping the hapless pot-loving duo.
Step Brothers (2008)
For fans of Will Ferrell, he was in another mismatched buddy comedy two years earlier with the movie Step Brothers. In this film, Ferrell and John C. Reilly star as two grown men who are as immature as they come and still live with their single parents.
However, when their parents get married, the two end up as stepbrothers living together, and a rivalry begins that threatens to tear their lives apart. Much like Wahlberg, Ferrell found great chemistry with Reilly, and the two worked together several times.
Super Troopers (2001)
Back to the idea of ridiculous law enforcement officers, the movie Super Troopers took the idea to the extreme. In the original film in 2001, the Broken Lizard comedy troupe created a film about the Vermont State Troopers who are thrown into disarray when they are forced to team with the local police, who they compete with for arrests.
Knowing their station risks shutting down due to lack of arrests, the troopers rivalry and competition grow out of control. A sequel arrived 17 years later, with the rivalry growing to include the Canadian mounties to the north.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
One of the best police comedies of all-time arrived in 2007 with the Edgar Wright film Hot Fuzz. Simon Pegg is Nicholas Angel, the best cop in the London Metropolitan Police Service. However, he is so good he makes everyone else look bad, so they transfer him to Sandford, Gloucestershire, a town in the country that has won Village of the Year many times over.
While here, Angel partners with Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) and learns that there is an evil hidden under the surface of this small town where more people die of accidents every year than ever seemed possible.
21 Jump Street (2012)
In the ’80s, Johnny Depp came into his own in the TV series 21 Jump Street as an undercover cop posing as a high school student.
In 2012, the team behind The LEGO Movie brought the property to the big screen with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill going undercover as high school students to stop a drug ring that has started running rampant among students. The movie was a critical and box office success, and a sequel came in 2014 titled 22 Jump Street.
Ride Along (2014)
In 2014, Tim Story (Barbershop) directed the buddy comedy Ride Along, starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. Ice Cube is a police officer whose sister wants to marry Kevin Hart’s security guard, but he is not sold.
As a result, he promises to get to know the hopeful fiance better and takes him out for a ride along. However, the two get more than they bargained for when it turns into more than a routine day patrolling the streets, and they try to catch a drug smuggler.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
In 2005, Shane Black returned and directed a movie based on one of his scripts in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This was the movie that pretty much signified the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the big time after his career had cratered due to legal and personal problems.
Downey Jr. is a small-time criminal who bungles a robbery and ends up bursting into a movie casting call while hiding from the police. The director believes he is improvising and casts him for the film. He then partners with a PI (Val Kilmer) to learn how the job works and ends up involved in a significant case.
Rush Hour (1998)
Rush Hour made both Brett Ratner an in-demand director and turned Chris Tucker into a top Hollywood draw. The movie sees a Hong Kong police detective (Jackie Chan) heading to America to find a friend’s missing daughter.
He partners with an LAPD detective who is being punished for a botched sting. As a result, the LAPD cop finds it in his best interest to help Chan’s detective solve the case, elevating his career while helping his new temporary partner help a friend.
Bulletproof (1996)
In 1996, Adam Sandler stepped outside his wheelhouse for a buddy action comedy alongside Damon Wayans. In Bulletproof, Sandler is Archie Moss, a small-time thief who helps smuggle drugs for a local drug lord. Wayans is Jack Carter, an LAPD detective who went undercover and became friends with Archie to infiltrate the gang.
Archie accidentally shoots Carter when the undercover operation goes wrong, and he goes on the run. When he is arrested, Carter is sent to bring him in, and the two end up on the run when the drug lord puts out a hit on Archie.
Bad Boys II (2003)
Bad Boys was one of Michael Bay’s most widely loved movies, but he outdid himself when he created the sequel Bad Boys II in 2003.
Will Smith was back as the flashy Mike Lowrey, and Martin Lawrence returned as the more grounded Marcus Burnett, two Miami narcotics officers, who in this movie are going through a rough patch. When Marcus’s sister and Mike’s secret girlfriend Syd turns out to be undercover for the DEA, they are forced to team up again to bring down a massive drug ring.