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Sixty
to Zero TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY: Directed by Adam McKay. Written by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Cinematography, Oliver Wood. Music, Anthony Short and Alex Wurman. Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Amy Adams, Molly Shannon, Gary Cole, Leslie Bibb, Greg Germann and Jane Lynch. Sony Pictures, 2006. PG-13. 105 minutes.
Closing credits aren't what they used to be. Once the solemn tableau of a film's vast production staff, nowadays end credits whiz by at light speed or list the names of the director's MySpace "friends." (Thank the bloated Kevin Smith and Clerks II for the latter.) As if grips and gaffers weren't invisible enough, they now have to sort through a dog-and-pony show just to find their names in the credits. Increasingly, comedies display their bloopers during end credits, a mostly pleasant trend that dates back to Cannonball Run (1981). But when the blooper reels are funnier than the films they're drawn from, it begs the question of whether those movies are worth making. Why not just assemble the actors, add some tequila and turn the cameras on? It's certainly a cheaper alternative to yet another underachieving comedy, like Nacho Libre or the new Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Talladega Nights was created by the team who made Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). In addition to elaborate subtitles, the films share similar arcs: A seriously dumb hero rises to fame, falls hard, then returns to fame a little less dumb than before. I like Will Ferrell, and he deserves a long career; if anything, he's one of the few recent comics to avoid the post-"SNL" curse. I don't like what's arguably his most famous film, Anchorman — it plays like nobody is at the controls — but Anchorman is head and shoulders above Talladega. If you've seen the trailer for Talladega, you've seen everything that's funny in Talladega. Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) was born in the backseat of a car going 105 miles per hour, but he's slower than a horse and buggy in the brains department. He isn't, however, the dimmest bulb in this picture. That honor goes to Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly), Ricky's friend and sidekick since grade school. When Ricky crashes and can't return to racing, Cal takes over, and not just on the racetrack: Cal marries Ricky's wife and moves into his estate. But both men are equally helpless before the talents of Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen, "Da Ali G Show"), the gay French driver taking NASCAR by storm. Girard is so good, he reads Camus' L'Étranger while driving. Only the combined brains of Ricky and Cal can hope to equal the one brain necessary to unseat Girard. That Talladega Nights, like NASCAR itself, is a blitz of product placements shouldn't surprise us. But Talladega becomes what it sets out to ridicule. Some will argue that the film aims to satirize NASCAR's unremitting commercialization, and it's true that some of the film's best moments involve Ricky's sponsorship deals run amok. Ricky can't even say grace before meals without mentioning a certain sports drink. But the fact that Talladega contains an actual commercial only brings home the point that, satire or not, there are hundreds of product placement deals at work here. The endorsements wouldn't be so intolerable if Talladega had more laughs in it. I don't mind crude, shallow humor. Just keep the jokes coming in waves. The jokes in Talladega feel cheap and familiar, rarely elevating the movie above a late-night infomercial. At one point, when Ricky's car windshield gets a sponsor, he can't see past the enormous decal to drive. I know how you feel, Ricky Bobby. It's obscuring my view, too. |
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