This is a buddy cop film comedy with Will Ferrell as a forensic accountant and Markie Mark as a hothead. They never get the good cases because two hotshot cops, played briefly by Dewayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson, get all the good cases, the headlines, and the nookie. When the two hotshot cops die in a foolish jump during a chase that did not have their normal Hollywood ending, Gamble and Holtz think that they have a shot to make the big time. But even though they’re on the thread of something big–a permitting violation has focused them on a British celebrity businessman who is involved in a massive bit of fraud to cover the losses incurred on behalf of a client.
So the film has rather predictable shenanigans and a recurring gag that the geeky Gamble (Ferrell) has the attention of beautiful women, including his wife (played by Eva Mendes) and an ex-girlfriend (Natalie Zea), which Holtz cannot fathom.
Eventually, of course, they get their man and save the day.
Overall, I might have confused this film with The Nice Guys, the Gosling and Crowe period piece. Well, not that closely. But I suspect that The Nice Guys is better. When picking films to watch one evening, my oldest mentioned that he’d started to watch this on Netflix but abandoned it. Given that he’s a Will Ferrell fan, this commentary probably explains why this film really never entered the zeitgeist for me to remember it outside of a profligate movie buying incident.