Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
2006
**
Director: Adam McKay
Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb, Jane Lynch, Amy Adams, Andy Richter
The star and director of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy have pretty much remade their previous collaboration; even the title looks the same. This time the hero is not a news anchor but a fiercely competitive Nascar driver Ricky Bobby who lives by his absent father's motto: "If you ain't first, you're last". Ricky's cocky sense of entitlement leads to a personal and professional crisis when an immensely talented and extremely gay French F1 driver joins the circuit. Co-writers Ferrell and McKay take a low-brow sport, a bunch of dumb redneck characters and, unsurprisingly, create a lowest common denominator comedy which is rarely funny. Will Ferrell springs no surprises and Sasha Baron Cohen is underused as the French rival, but Gary Cole provides the film's few laughs as the hero's drunk and incredibly selfish dad.
