TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY

Director: Adam McKay (Anchorman: ... Ron Burgundy, TV work)
Starring: Will Ferrell, John C Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen

Will Ferrell goes back to the well and pulls up another bucket full of broad, silly humor a la Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I guess that's a pretty good thing.

It's hard to review a movie like this because by every conventional marker of a good story these sorts of broad comedies always fail miserably, and this one is no exception. I can go on ad nauseum about the flaws in this story: The love interest barely makes it onscreen. There is very little continuity in the conflict between the main characters. It just sort of jumps around to wherever it feels like going. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I know as well as you do though, that these sorts of things don't matter at all for a movie like this. This isn't a 40 Year Old Virgin quality flick, or a Wedding Crashers quality flick. This is a Saturday Night Live skit extended to 90 minutes (just like Wayne's World, or Anchorman, or many other films of the sort). It lives or dies on whether that skit is funny. For my part, I thought it was pretty damn funny. Heck, I don't even think this humor needed a story to go with it - I found the outtakes that ran during the ending credits to be as funny as the movie. That should tell you where this movie lives.

I won't bother too much with the plot (I doubt it's all that important in the long run). For what it's worth however, Ricky Bobby is the story of a southern Nascar champion who is challenged, defeated, and humiliated by a gay French Formula One racer (Cohen) at his own game. He loses his trophy wife and his best friend (John C Reilly). He sinks as low as he can go, but of course eventually redeems himself by reconnecting to his mother, absentee father and a fairly random love interest. The French guy turns out to be all right in the end. His pot dealing dad turns out to be all right in the end. Everyone turns out all right in the end.

I've got to admit that all three main characters (plus a few of the other supporting characters) were just damn funny in this movie. Cohen was over the top in a Peter Sellers/Inspecter Clouseau kind of way. Reilly was just about the perfect dumb buddy to Ferrell's Nascar God. I found this flick funny throughout, occasionally even hilarious. I should note that its humor is very much of the silly, oddball variety that was in Anchorman, though. Like that film, I imagine some folks just aren't going to feel the same way that I do. If you liked Anchorman (like me) you'll like this. I liked it quite a bit more in fact.

Standouts: Silly, dumb hilarity.
Blowouts: Hoping for anything more than silly dumb hilarity.

Grade: B