Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Seen 31 July 2006 at AMC Fenway 13
* * * * (out of 5)
This, paired with Anchorman, can be held up as the reason DVDs were invented. Sure, the initial release of the film was pretty decent, but I can only imagine that the quality will jump a little more when Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow and Co. release a DVD with every take of every joke. Someday, there ought to be a format that just gives a string of one-liners that the viewer can piece together. That’s basically what Ferrell did.
It’s a funny movie, to be sure, but humor is such a subjective thing that I can imagine the sections that didn’t work for me in execution probably had something much funnier (in my opinion) left on the cutting room floor.
The premise is fertile enough for comedy. Ferrell plays Ricky Bobby, a man who has wanted to “go fast” for his entire life. He finally gets his opportunity when working on the pit crew for a dead last NASCAR racing team; the normal driver basically gave up, and Ricky jumped in the car and finished the race, placing surprisingly high. From there on out, he’s a NASCAR sensation, even getting a driving gig for his best friend, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly). Together as “Shake n’ Bake,” they are the best driving duo in the business. All that changes when Ricky comes up against Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), a top French Formula 1 racer who has come to challenge Ricky. After a fairly horrific crash that leaves Ricky completely unscathed physically (despite what he might think), Ricky has to rebuild the life that got stolen from him – Cal’s with his wife, his sponsors dumped him, and his issues with his never-there father (Gary Cole) begin to emerge when his father does. To reclaim his title as king of NASCAR, he has to get back in the driver’s seat, beat Cal and Girard, and prove to his father he really is a driver.
Yep. All kinds of silliness, and all kinds of potential fun, too. In my mind, when you start with a premise like this, it’s better to keep it completely over-the-top for the entire runtime. Keep people consistently giggling, and they won’t notice the giant lack of a reasonable plot or cheaper-than-cardboard characters. And Talladega Nights does pretty well with that, though not quite as spot-on as its predecessor Anchorman did. The biggest downfall is that there are moments when everyone, even Ferrell, felt subdued, something that’s entirely against the grain for this group of talent. I have to wonder if they were nervous about the obvious stereotypes they were playing off of – popular to mock, but when you’re making a movie with so many NASCAR sponsors and promoters signing off on it, that’s not a crowd you want to alienate by being overly abrasive.
Read the rest at HBS!
* * * * (out of 5)
This, paired with Anchorman, can be held up as the reason DVDs were invented. Sure, the initial release of the film was pretty decent, but I can only imagine that the quality will jump a little more when Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow and Co. release a DVD with every take of every joke. Someday, there ought to be a format that just gives a string of one-liners that the viewer can piece together. That’s basically what Ferrell did.
It’s a funny movie, to be sure, but humor is such a subjective thing that I can imagine the sections that didn’t work for me in execution probably had something much funnier (in my opinion) left on the cutting room floor.
The premise is fertile enough for comedy. Ferrell plays Ricky Bobby, a man who has wanted to “go fast” for his entire life. He finally gets his opportunity when working on the pit crew for a dead last NASCAR racing team; the normal driver basically gave up, and Ricky jumped in the car and finished the race, placing surprisingly high. From there on out, he’s a NASCAR sensation, even getting a driving gig for his best friend, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly). Together as “Shake n’ Bake,” they are the best driving duo in the business. All that changes when Ricky comes up against Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), a top French Formula 1 racer who has come to challenge Ricky. After a fairly horrific crash that leaves Ricky completely unscathed physically (despite what he might think), Ricky has to rebuild the life that got stolen from him – Cal’s with his wife, his sponsors dumped him, and his issues with his never-there father (Gary Cole) begin to emerge when his father does. To reclaim his title as king of NASCAR, he has to get back in the driver’s seat, beat Cal and Girard, and prove to his father he really is a driver.
Yep. All kinds of silliness, and all kinds of potential fun, too. In my mind, when you start with a premise like this, it’s better to keep it completely over-the-top for the entire runtime. Keep people consistently giggling, and they won’t notice the giant lack of a reasonable plot or cheaper-than-cardboard characters. And Talladega Nights does pretty well with that, though not quite as spot-on as its predecessor Anchorman did. The biggest downfall is that there are moments when everyone, even Ferrell, felt subdued, something that’s entirely against the grain for this group of talent. I have to wonder if they were nervous about the obvious stereotypes they were playing off of – popular to mock, but when you’re making a movie with so many NASCAR sponsors and promoters signing off on it, that’s not a crowd you want to alienate by being overly abrasive.
Read the rest at HBS!
posted by Matt S. at
8:33 AM
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