COULD USE MORE FUNNY FUEL
** out of *****
There's this really great joke on Family Guy about Will Farrell. Stewie is watching the remake of Bewitched and sees a lame joke. He flies all the way down to L.A. to ring Will Farrell's doorbell. Farrell opens up the door and Stewie immediately smacks the crap out of him, snarling, "That's NOT FUNNY!" You kind of feel like doing what Stewie did after watching Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. The movie is like watching somebody bang their head against the wall repeatedly to get a chuckle. You may laugh at it once in awhile but overall it's just painful.
Directed by Adam McKay (Anchorman and 40 Year Old Virgin), and co-written by Will Farrell, Talladega Nights feels like Anchorman, but significantly not as funny. This is probably because Farrell's performance in Anchorman was bizarrely original and bombastically pompous. Everything that Ron Burgundy said dripped with such gusto it made his pronouncements sound iconic while he was spewing gibberish. The movie followed suit with a loose cartoony reality that mirrored the lead character. Against all odds, Anchorman held together and worked.
Talladega Nights doesn't work, mainly because Ricky Bobby isn't as strangely compelling a protagonist as Burgundy was. Talladega doesn't have that elastic Looney Tunes vibe that the previous film did In Anchorman, people spontaneously busted out into song, or had gigantic newsmen brawls, or summoned people with conches, and a lot more wacky stuff. Talladega is stubbornly earthbound and completely misses the strangely endearing touch that made Anchorman so much fun.
Yes, it sounds unfair to compare Talladega so closely to Anchorman, but, I mean, come on! They're both done by the exact same crew, share a lot of the same actors, and has the same improvisational style from the aforementioned movie. Hell, even both the titles sound the same. It’s about as close as a direct sequel can get. It simply doesn't measure up.
The plot is about Ricky Bobby (Farrell), a hillbilly NASCAR racecar driver who is the best driver in the land, along with his best friend and perpetual runner up, Carl Naughton Jr. (John C. Riley). Their domination is challenged when the French driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) ends Ricky Bobby's unbeaten streak. Bobby is disgraced, hospitalized, then eventually has to relearn his need for speed to win the day. If this all sounds familiar to you, the plot loosely follows the same storyline as that car racing *cough* classic *cough* Days of Thunder. Also, it’s the same damn sports movie plot that we've seen in every sports movie ever.
As mentioned above, Farrell's Ricky Bobby is nowhere near the comic creation that Ron Burgundy was. Bobby is basically just talking like George W. Bush and yelling a lot. While the character is rather boring, it's hard to not get a laugh out of Farrell every once in awhile. Farrell is a definite improvisational talent. Even when he's missing every once in awhile he scores gold. The problem is the ratio of laughs to non-laughs is slanted more in the later category.
John C. Riley, usually a character actor reserved for dark and dramatic supporting roles, is the comedic foil as Ricky Bobby's buddy. Riley isn't bad, but he seems out of his element when up against some comedic regulars. Sometimes casting against type works, but Riley’s case you're just wondering why they didn't' cast a comedic regular, lets say Rob Schneider, in a role that probably could have gotten more laughs than what it did.
There is some great supporting work in here from two individuals in particular, but their work also highlight's the movie's main problem: if the lead actor is being shown up in a movie where the majority of the laughs are supposed to be his, then you've got a problem.
Sacha Cohen is Jean the openly gay French autoracer and Bobby's nemesis. Cohen, a genuine comedic talent previously seen as Ali G and Borat on Da Ali G Show, steals every scene that he's in. Cohen's impenetrable accent, clichéd mannerisms and complete lack of anything resembling humanity makes for a very funny comedic bad guy. He's one of the funniest things in the movie, and watching his performance makes you wish his upcoming Borat movie was in theatres a lot sooner.
Different, but still very funny, is Gary Cole as Ricky Bobby's absent and transient father, Reese Bobby. Cole stumbles about drunkenly, slurring and raging at everything in sight. It's a gloriously over-the-top white trash parody, but he sells it with such fearless enthusiasm (something that is missing from Farrell's performance). What's best about the movie is that it steadfastly refuses the humanize Reese Bobby. Any time you think you're going to get a group-hug moment, Cole does something happily narcissistic. Both Cohen and Cole's roles are actual characters -- this contrasts sharply with the blandness of Farrell's lead.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is a disappointment. Will Farrell has been way overexposed and in a lot of very crappy movies lately, but this was supposed to be a return to form - a film directly from his comedic brain to the audience. Sadly, it really isn't that funny. Watching the supporting cast running circles around Will Farrell it makes you wonder if he was really all that good to begin with.
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