Talladega Nights
“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”, although I think it was meant to be a parody of a race care hero, turns out to be a pretty straight forward look, with funny twists, at the world of Nascar and it racers and scores a C+…
“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” works because the characters surrounding the star, and co-writer Will Farrell are interesting, likable, and funny without overtly trying too hard to be. Being a moderate Will Farrell fan, I welcomed the very good cast who rounded out the ensemble who seemed to be having a lot of fun with their characters. The highpoint is the thrilling Nascar racing sequences that put you right up front from the high speed laps around racetracks to the organized chaos of the racing pits!
The story opens with young Ricky Bobby and how he was born in the back of a speeding Chevy, with his first words as a toddler being: “I wanna go fast.” As Ricky (Will Farrell) reaches manhood his passion for speed is still there and is working as part of a pit crew on the Nascar circuit. As luck would have it, Ricky gets a big break when their regular team driver (with a real attitude about his job as a driver) decides to take an extended break during a pit stop. Ricky drives the car and with his unorthodox style of driving wins the race! Ricky Bobby keeps on winning and the sponsors are flocking to be a part of his success. Ricky has it all, winning records, countless corporate sponsors and endorsement deals, a big house, a driveway full of cars and boats, a very hot wife Carley (Leslie Bibb), two trash-talking young sons named Walker and Texas Ranger (Houston Tumlin and Grayson Russell), and his loyal best friend Cal Naughton, Jr. (the always brilliant John C. Reilly). It’s plain to us that the winning team of Ricky and Cal is the reason why Ricky wins. Cal and Ricky Bobby nickname each other “Shake” and “Bake,” to emphasize their partnership (Cal positions his car to help his team’s star driver slingshot to victory). The catch phrase is also the irritant to their closest competitor, a gay French nemesis Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen). Girad is a real hoot! He’s a Gitanes-smoking, Camus-reading racer in the Perrier car, while Cal’s car is Wonder Bread, and Ricky’s is Old Spice. Running out of places to put sponsor logos, Ricky Bobby even sells his windshield to Fig Newtons. To add to the chaos world of Ricky Bobby, enter his long missing, beer-drinkin’, pot-smokin’ dad Reese Bobby (Gary Cole)!
Additional cast with standout performances include Amy Adams, who is delightfully sexy as Ricky Bobby’s assistant, Susan. And the young actors who play Ricky’s two sons, Houston Tumlin as Walker and Grayson Russell as Texas Ranger (hilarious names for kids!) are inspired! Other smaller standout performance are Molly Shannon as the team owner’s always buzzed wife, and Michael Clark Duncan as the pit-crew chief add a nice flavor to the movie!
Director Adam McKay (who co-wrote the script with Will Farrell) has a firm control on the big cast and the exciting Nascar racing sequences to deliver an entertaining, funny, and insightful look at the world of Ricky Bobby and the Nascar circuit! The racing scenes are convincingly photographed by Oliver Wood, who filmed both the “Bourne Conspiracy” and the “Bourne Supremacy” movies, is good at shooting action with automobiles. The CGI-assisted camera movements that take you from above the track down into the car, is what one would see in an action/drama movie makes them eerily funny in “Talladega Nights”! I laughed out loud a lot more than I expected, which is what comedy is really all about!
Grade: C+
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