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Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
USA, 2006
[Adam Mckay]
Will Ferrell, John C. McGinley, Leslie Bibb, Gary Cole, Sacha Baron Cohen
Comedy
1st January 2007
As arguably the biggest star on this side of the pond right now, Will Ferrell has come a long way in a short space of time. His earliest film roles were mostly small but impressive supporting roles in the likes of Austin Powers, Zoolander and Old School. When he progressed to leading roles though the results were less impressive. Elf, Bewitched, Kicking & Screaming, all had their crippling flaws somewhere or other. Anchorman was the nadir, a great idea weighed down with embarrassingly ineffective improvisation, it should probably have never been released. Talladega Nights is more in the Anchorman mold, with an interesting situation and lots of improvisation. It also succeeds brilliantly where its predecessor failed.

There are several reasons for this. The first one is that
Talladega Nights skirts perfectly between honouring its NASCAR setting and riotously taking the piss out of it. NASCAR is a very big part of the lives of a minority of Americans, but those Americans are the ones we all giggle at: the truck-hat wearing, wife-beater-sporting, mulleted yokel drunks of the South-Eastern United States. As such there is much fun to be had at their expense, and unsurprisingly the film makes good use of it. Ferrell is a riot, superbly imitating what we presume to be the dumb driver stereotype of a man who just wants to 'go fast'. In Cohen he has the perfect foil, a man who can think out of the box and deliver his lines in a way that makes you laugh despite yourself.

Ferrell plays Ricky Bobby, a race day engineer who steps up to the big time when his team's driver leaves a meet right in the middle. His natural, fearless ability shoots him up to No.1 in no time, aided by his best friend since childhood Cal Naughton, Jr (Reilly). However, when Formula 1 champion Jean Girard (the peerless Cohen) enters the scene Bobby ends up wrecking his car and psyching himself out. Unable to race anymore his slapper wife marries Cal and he winds up delivering pizza and living at his mum's house. Utilising his absent father (Cole)'s help he attempts to overcome these fears and beat Girard, finding true love along the way.

Of course the film rarely keeps its finger on this subject, frequently breaking off for extended scenes of wackiness. Whenever Cohen and Ferrell are on screen together the results are pure dynamite, and Cohen's farcical French accent perfectly complements Ferrell's southern drawl. For once improvisation works, though this may be more through good luck than good management, and the results are spectacular. If it wasn't for Cohen's even more random and bizarre
Borat this would probably be the funniest movie of the year, and this from a man who genuinely loathes low-brow comedy.
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