Ricky Bobby is a successful NASCAR driver, always winning at the races, but is disappointed that his dad Reese disappeared since his childhood and never watched one of Ricky’s races. When gay French driver Jean beats him in a tournament, Ricky’s life falls apart: he goes bankrupt; his wife marries his best friend Cal; Ricky has to move with his two kids to him mother’s place. However, Ricky’s dad shows up and trains him to drive cars. At a tournament, Ricky wins against Jean and falls in love with his assistant Susan.
It must be an interesting process inside the mind of director-screenwriter Adam McKay when he sets out to make a pure comedy. All of his early films are of that genre, and it seems as if he wrote down all the silly ideas he had when he was 12 years old, and then just decided to film them as a grown up. Even “Talladega Nights” fit in this pattern, since McKay and his team do not even bother about creating a story, since it does not matter, and are instead only interested in conjuring up as many random jokes as possible, hoping they will hit a punchline. In fact, over a dozen scenes seem as if they came from a whole set of different movies. Even when the viewers don’t like a particular joke, a hundred more are just around the corner. Juvenile and dumb, the film is not as hilarious as McKay’s other comedies, such as “Stepbrothers” or “Anchorman”, and is instead more restrained, never as vulgar or insane as the said two films. Sacha Baron Cohen makes a guest appearance as the French rival Jean, leading to several ridiculous dialogues with the title protagonist (“I feel like I’m Highlander!” - “What is Highlander?” - “It’s a movie. It won the Academy Award.” - “Oh, for what?” - “For the best movie of all time”). Ironically, some of the best jokes arrive in the post-credit bloopers, from Cal during prayer (“I like to think of Jesus as a mischievous badger!... I like to imagine Jesus as a shapeshifter!”) up to the funny sequence where Ricky is lying in a coma in a hospital bed, and his friend Lucius is trying to reach him (“I sometimes dress up as Donna Summers, you know, put on a skirt and 4-inch heels. Last chance for romance, for love...”, upon which Will Ferrell cannot take it anymore and starts laughing with his eyes shut). A light comedy without ambitions, and too talkative at that, yet it is fun.
Grade:++
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