You’re walking near Wall Street on a Sunday. The streets are mostly deserted; cars are doing the equivalent of strolling. You turn a corner and stumble upon a crowd. Everyone is looking up, at an office building across the street, so you look up, too. You don’t see it right away, but then you catch your breath: There’s a guy on a ledge, and he looks like he’s about to jump. You hurry closer, push into the crowd until you’re one of them, waiting expectantly. Then you hear the giggling. Everyone is giggling. A few seconds later, the body drops, and … applause!

Oh, right. A movie. You finally notice all the camera equipment, the wires all over the ground, and, wait, isn’t that Ricky Bobby? Ron Burgundy? What’s his name? Will Ferrell, says the guy next to you. And next to him is Marky Mark. (Mark Wahlberg, you think to yourself.) Turns out it’s a cop comedy called The Other Guys, directed by Adam McKay. Pretty soon a man yells Action! The crowd looks up and the jumper is back on the ledge. Ferrell is talking to him through a megaphone, trying to lure him down with reasons to live. “Think of the blow jobs. Or boobies. Or plasma-screen TVs.” Wahlberg shouts at Ferrell that his stupid advice isn’t going to help, to just give up already—that guy’s a goner. In fact, he is. Shortly after a dummy in a suit takes the fall.

You remember you were going somewhere. You edge out of the crowd, back into the hush of lower Manhattan, oblivious to reality, tweeting to all your friends.

Related:

• Archive: “Movie Features”
• Articles by Mary Kaye Schilling
• Table of Contents: Oct 26, 2009 issue of New York | Subscribe!