Making a satire about NASCAR would seem to be like shooting fish in a barrel. A small barrel.....with a very big gun. Director and co-writer Adam McKay brings out a huge gun, Will Ferrell, to do what most of us do every week: make fun of the millions of people (all of whom live in three southern states) who worship men in fire-proof unitards shilling for almost every consumer product in existence while driving very, very fast without the benefit of door handles that work.
The plot, such as it is, is pretty thin. Ferrell's Ricky Bobby and his teammate Cal Naughton Jr. (the as-usual excellent John C. Reilly) are the dominant NASCAR drivers (with Cal always finishing a close second), bringing Ricky Bobby fame and fortune. He lives a life of conspicuous consumption with his materialistic white-trash wife Carley (Leslie Bibb) and his two obnoxious boys, Walker and Texas Ranger. Ricky Bobby's strangle-hold on Victory Lane is threatened by gay French Formula One driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) who stands for everything that a Dixie-bred NASCAR nut would, in theory, despise.
There are times while watching Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby that you wonder why they even bothered with a plot at all. The main point of the movie is watching improv masters like Ferrell, Reilly, and Cohen make fun of Southerners and gay Frenchman. Gary Cole almost steals the movie as Ricky's absentee father who shows up every ten years or so to impart life's lessons with the help of a cougar. But scenes with Ferrell putting on a blindfold to "feel" the car and then driving directly into the side of a house don't need much plot support, they are just funny. That's what happens with most of the funny scenes and lines, and there are quite a few. They are hilarious in the moment but don't really hold together over the course of two hours. You're left wondering what a ruthless editor, less in awe of Ferrell's formidable talent, would have done to pare this thing down to its best moments. However, you don't think about it too long as Farrell shows up to run around praying to Tom Cruise to put out an imaginary fire that only he can feel.
Since this "Unrated Version" is actually longer, not shorter, than the theatrical version, the movie remains less than it could be. It's not that all the good parts are in the trailer, but all the best parts are in the trailer and the remaining good parts are a bit too scattered. Those good parts, however, are sometimes so good that they almost compensate for the drag in-between. Like so many of Cal Naughton Jr.'s races, the movie doesn't take the checkered flag, but shouldn't be ashamed of the effort. |
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Unrated Edition) - DVD
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