When you see actors like Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg attached to a project, the odds that I will enjoy the film are pretty damn good. So “The Other Guys” had me from the start, but the real payoff came when the rest of the cast joined in the fun.

Like “Date Night,” this movie didn’t just rest on the cachet if its top two stars. The genius casting of the secondary character turned something funny into something fantastic. They managed to find the right people who could convey some emotion about the story, pull off the jokes and not make the action seems look totally out of place.

The inclusion of Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson as the renegade cops who minimize Farrell and Wahlberg was simply inspired. They didn’t get a ton of time in the film, but they made every moment of it count.

They didn’t stop there. Rob Riggle and Damon Wayans put in a fantastic turn as the new top cops on the force, but everything came together because of Michael Keaton’s portrayal as their captain, named for some reason after late Minnesota Twins manager Gene Mauch. Between the way he tries to keep “the other guys” in check, his second job at Bed, Bath & Beyond and his penchant for quoting TLC lyrics, he served as the star in the ensemble for me.

But all that just set the stage for Ferrell and Wahlberg. They worked together fantastically amid a failry weak plot. I had to go back and read what the problem was that they were trying to solve. It didn’t really matter because they made everything they did pretty fun.

As I have said a bunch of times, that’s all I ask from a movie. Make me laugh, keep things moving and go beyond the stars in making good casting decisions. “The Other Guys” hits all these marks.