Will Ferrell and director and co-writer Adam McKay drive into the winner's circle with Talladega Nights, a movie that just wants to have fun.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
Published August 3, 2006
When he's on, Will Ferrell gives stupidity a good name: Buddy the Elf, Frank the Tank, Ron Burgundy and now Ricky Bobby, the most boneheaded of them all.
Ricky is intensely dumb, all the while convinced he's the smartest person alive. It is a tricky scheme for any comedian, making audiences laugh at clueless ambition without tiring of the joke or feeling they're the butt of it.
Ferrell is a wire-to-wire winner in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and he doesn't do it alone. Like the NASCAR ace he plays, Ferrell has a crack crew in support, jacking up punch lines and keeping their grilles clean of laughter that must have been continually suppressed during takes.
This looks like a movie that was a lot of fun to make yet doesn't remain an inside joke. Stupidity spills from the screen, and it feels refreshing in this fairly humorless summer. This isn't well-cultivated crudeness along the lines of The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Wedding Crashers. Those are Fellini flicks by comparison. But Ferrell and his director and co-writer, Adam McKay, tapped into something unique, an affectionate joshing of NASCAR stereotypes and episodic Hollywood biopics. They always aim low and frequently score high.
The blend is obvious from the first frames, a dubious 1936 quote from Eleanor Roosevelt about her need for speed. Then comes the standard landmark birth scene of the hero, only this one hinges upon a speedometer and good brakes. "I wanna go fast" is little Ricky's mantra through a briskly essayed childhood until he unexpectedly gets his chance, subbing for a fed-up driver during a NASCAR race.
Ricky's strategy is simple: Win or crash the car trying. "If you ain't first, you're last" is what his father a hilarious Gary Cole advised before deserting. Ricky always leaves two race tickets for Dad and whoever he's slumming with at will-call, a sports cliche setting up a nice punch line. Ricky endures the obligatory rise, injury, rehabilitation and comeback of countless sports biographies, but none with this relentless humor. Ferrell and McKay devised the screenplay, although that's a questionable description with all the obvious improvisation going on.
Ferrell's routine is familiar now, a character focus bordering on psychosis, prone to outbursts of petulant rage. Put that personality behind the wheel of a car going 187 miles per hour - backward, if necessary - and you have an instant temporary pop icon. He's more of a cartoon than anything in Cars, spitting macho redneck "wisdom" and catchphrases we're certain to hear outside the theater.
The problem with Ferrell's recent movies is that they either weren't comedies (Winter Passing, Melinda and Melinda), or he was surrounded by actors content to stand aside while he cut loose (The Producers, Bewitched, Kicking & Screaming). Talladega Nights pits him against two actors who don't back down, matching his dim expressions and weird exuberance. John C. Reilly tweaks his usual dramatic intensity to create a funny although underwritten sidekick. His and Ricky's "shake and bake" battle cry tries too hard to become the next "show me the money" for jargon abuse.
Ferrell's best foil is Sacha Baron Cohen (HBO's The Ali G Show), whose talent for bizarre accents and affectations is perfect for Jean Girard, a Formula One champion moving to the NASCAR circuit. Jean is French, gay and married to a smug intellectual (Andy Richter), brilliantly completing the trifecta of what the so-called NASCAR voter doesn't like. Cohen mangles English like a junior Clouseau, practically oozing Eurotrash odors. Ricky is dumb. Jean is dumber.
Sure, there are times when the humor goes under the yellow flag, slowing the pace when Ferrell and Reilly get on a roll or Molly Shannon shows up playing drunk. When that happens, enjoy the extra touches: anything Cole does, several impressively digitized race mishaps and small details such as a sponsorship logo on Ricky's broken arm. Talladega Nights wants only to be your stupid summer movie pleasure. Ferrell and McKay got 'er done.
