Mark Wahlberg apparently really likes playing cops; they’re right up there with “Soldiers” and “Cades Yeager” on his list of most-played film roles. To the actor’s credit, though, his police officers tend to have at least a few distinguishing features—maybe they’re brusque but loyal assholes, or intentional subversions of the cowboy cop ideal—that make them stand out. Now, New Line has signed Wahlberg up for his least likely police officer role yet: an LAPD detective who finds out his new partner/boss is, horror of horrors, a woman he slept with the night before they officially met on the job.
The new movie, Partners, is being billed as a twist on the well-worn buddy comedy formula—albeit one that finally acts on the sexual tension that’s been brewing between implausibly thrust-together detectives for decades. There’s no word yet on who’ll be playing the female FBI agent who acts as Wahlberg’s opposite number, but you can probably expect someone who looks totally cool and competent while either getting a drink at the club or firing her pistol on the range, while Wahlberg is busy getting all the movie’s laughs by freaking out like a giant, insecure, anger-faced baby.