Mark Wahlberg, left, and Will Ferrell star in the comedy The Other Guys.

LOS ANGELES -- A gun-toting Will Ferrell chasing down crooks on the mean streets of New York?

Tough guy Mark Wahlberg playing his trademark intensity for laughs in a full-blown comedy.

What's wrong with this picture?

Actually, it's what's absolutely right with this picture.

With The Other Guys, in theatres Friday, Ferrell and Wahlberg successfully revive the long-ailing buddy cop movie genre as a mismatched pair of NYC's finest stuck doing desk work while the other hotshots reap all the glory.

That is, until they finally get a chance to make their own headlines after following a paper trail to a white collar crime of Bernie Madoff proportions.

Not that the supporting players, including Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson are exactly chopped liver, but it's bookish Ferrell and kick-ass Wahlberg brilliantly playing off each other who make for the comic dream team of the summer.

Who knew?

Well, Ferrell for one, along with his trusty writer-director Adam McKay (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby), who invited Wahlberg out for dinner one fateful night.

"For years, Adam and I had talked about working with Mark in a comedy," says Ferrell, 43, taking in the skyline from a swank L.A. hotel mezzanine. "So we all sat down and Adam came up with this idea of these guys on the force that nobody cares about who have the chance to step forward."

They had him at "comedy."

Although he had certainly demonstrated a way with a funny line in earlier films such as The Big Hit, I Heart Huckabees and Date Night, Wahlberg had never tackled a full-on comedy before, and for good reason.

"If you come from a dramatic background and you try to do a comedy and it doesn'twork, you don't get another chance, you know?" reasons 39-year-old Wahlberg. "I've always been scared of working with comedians that were the complete opposite of how they appear on screen. The last thing I'd want to do is try to be funny while the cameras were rolling and then have people being all dark and moody and weird."

But long before coffee and dessert it had become apparent that Ferrell was the real deal.

"Will is what he appears to be," says Wahlberg. "He's a sweet family guy who just loves to make people laugh and his humour comes from a place of kindness, not a dark place. So just sitting down with him for five minutes, I was like, I'll do anything you want."

The feeling was mutual.

"He was right in lock-step with us in how we do comedy -- committing to a character and playing it really real," explains Ferrell. "So, in terms of his intensity, he just naturally did it. Mark's just got great comedic instincts and he's quietly this really funny guy."

Mind you, anytime you're acting opposite a Ferrell character, retaining that intensity can be a challenge, if not at times downright impossible.

"My whole thing was, I'm not going to let this guy break me and ruin takes," explains Wahlberg, who occasionally would take to looking slightly to the left or right of Ferrell's face so as to avoid direct eye contact. "I didn't want to be the guy where they go, 'Oh, come on man, pull it together. We're on the clock here!' But there were just little things he did that got to me."

Of course, the shoe was on the other foot when it came to the film's explosive action sequences.

While Ferrell got into the cop movie groove by hanging out at actual police precincts and going to a rifle range, Wahlberg was very much in his comfort zone, even during a John Woo-style shootout which had him sliding flat on his back along a boardroom table in slo-mo with his guns blazing.

"They just strapped me up and pulled me around," Wahlberg says with a no-big-deal shrug.

"Keep in mind, I had to run out of there pretty quickly," counters Ferrell. "I had to run, I had to duck. I had to do things, too."

And while on the subject of preparing for a role, dare we ask -- was it just the shadows and camera angles or was fitness-conscious Wahlberg looking a little, uh, soft around the middle?

Turns out, just prior to The Other Guys, Wahlberg shot The Fighter, in which he plays the part of real-life boxer Irish Mickey Ward, and they needed to do some additional scenes after Ward retired from the ring and put on a chunk of weight.

"So I ate and drank and ate and drank throughout the whole course of The Other Guys," shares Wahlberg. "I put on about 30 pounds and then the Fighter people said, 'well, we know you just put on all this weight but we need you to do two additional sequences where you're in shape again.' So then I had five weeks to lose it all."

Given the awards buzz that's already surrounding his longtime pet project, Wahlberg's efforts could be well worth the, uh, weight.

Although the film, co-starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo, would also seem to be a natural for the Toronto International Film Festival, Wahlberg says it's still undecided whether or not the drama will go the festival route ahead of its Dec. 10 wide release.

Ferrell, meanwhile, is hoping to be invited to TIFF along with his next film, Everything Must Go.

"I haven't done a film before that's hoping to get distribution by going the festival route," says Ferrell of the $5 million drama based on a short story by Raymond Carver. "This is the first time I've been on that journey, so I'm excited to do that."

Before leaving the subject of Toronto, we couldn't help asking if the newly comedic Wahlberg was kidding around about challenging a certain former Maple Leaf to a boxing match.

"I'm telling you right now, this is front page news," crows Wahlberg. "You're gonna see me knock out Tie Domi at Air Canada Centre."

Any plans for when that bout would take place?

"As soon as he steps up!" replies Wahlberg. "As soon as he stops dodging me!"

That Marky Mark -- once a tough guy ...