US President Barack Obama compares the Republican party to cops in 'The Departed'

President Barack Obama has become the latest senior US politician to reference a Hollywood film during a public speech, after he compared himself to Mark Wahlberg's character in The Departed.

Speaking in Austin, in the US state of Texas, on Thursday, the President responded to threats of legal action put against him by Republicans, by invoking the plain-speaking Staff Sgt. Sean Dignam in the 2006 Martin Scorsese crime thriller.

“There’s a scene in the movie where Mark Wahlberg — you know, they’re on a stakeout — and somehow the guy loses the guy that they’re tracking. And Wahlberg’s all upset and, you know, yelling at the guy. And the guy looks up and he says, ‘Well, who are you?’ And Wahlberg says, ‘I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy,’” Obama said, ABC News reported.

“Sometimes I feel like saying to these guys, ‘I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy,’” he said to laughter and applause from the crowd at the Paramount Theatre in Austin.

He added that rather than waging “another political stunt that wastes time, wastes taxpayers’ money,” Republicans should work with him to grow the economy.

His comments come after US Secretary of State John Kerry referred to Rocky IV at the height of the Ukraine crisis.

He warned Russia in a statement at the time that “this is not Rocky IV” – referring to the 1990 film depicting a battle between East and West, in which Rocky Balboa fights then-Soviet Union boxer Ivan Drago.