The TGIF Movie Review: Talladega Nights
May 5th, 2007 by Matt
Editor’s note: Our apologies for bringing you the TGIF review on a Saturday. Well, it is Saturday, after all. It’s still a movie night. We’re confident that you’ll cope.
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This review should start with a two-part admonition:
- I’m not a NASCAR kind of guy. It could be because I spent six years battling 50 miles of rush hour traffic each day of work. Or it could be because I’ve spent the last nine years in the 15th largest city in the U.S. of A, and I’ve grown a bit sick at the sight of cars, hybrid or not.
- I love most Will Ferrell flicks. Give me Old School, Elf, and his “meatloaf” cameo in Wedding Crashers any day and I’ll be a cackling fool.
So, here’s Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the first all-out comedy I’ve reviewed for Progressive Wednesday. And let me tell you, this film, which pokes gentle fun at NASCAR, is freaking hilarious. The thing is, if you’re like me and racing ain’t your cup of green tea, you’ll still dig this movie, because the racing is just a blank canvas, almost an excuse to give us delightful, gut-busting lunacy. The movie makes leaps in time and logic and, like a good comedy, it doesn’t apologize. The dialogue and scenes often extend jokes father that you’d think they could pull off — but they do.
The plot, if you’d like to call it that, goes like this: Ricky Bobby accidentally becomes the greatest race car driver in America, gets in a crash, loses his skills and courage, loses his wife and wealth to his best friend, and battles a French driver to retain the “title” he lost. None of that really matters. Trust me.
What matters is that Ferrell is at his finest, playing Ricky Bobby, not ironically, but honestly — honestly goofy, inept, strangely intelligent, and driven. What matters is that John C. Reilly, playing Bobby’s best pal, is just as laugh-out-loud funny. What matters is that Sacha Baron Cohen (you might have caught him as “Borat”), Michael Clarke Duncan, and Andy Richter will all have you rolling. What matter is, with all the violence, avarice, and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns streaming into our televisions, Talladega Nights is a deserved and earned reprieve.
But the real treat comes with the DVD’s extras: they’re the dessert. And let me tell you, we’re not talking about a milkshake. We’re talking tiramisu. The extras let you in on the improvisation that went into the making of this film. And I thought, for the second week in a row, that I was going to cry watching them.
Maybe some quotes from the flick will convince you that this is a must-see movie:
- “We go together like Chinese food and pudding!”
- “Dear Lord baby Jesus, we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Domino’s, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell.”
- “I’m the best there is, plain and simple. I mean, I wake up in the morning and piss excellence. You know, I’m just a big, hairy, American winning machine.”
- “Oh, I love the crepe suzette. I wish I could crawl into one of those right now. I’d eat my way out from the inside.”
- “We missed you at the wedding. Oh man, it was so classy. We had a Styx cover band and a nacho fountain.”
- “And now the matador will dance with the blind shoemaker.”
- “What’s ‘Diablo’ mean?” * “It’s like Spanish for a fighting chicken.”
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