He's the good ol' boy with two first names, a nasty temper and the inability to count past No. 1. Ricky Bobby lives by the words his daddy told him: "If you're not first, you're last." Ricky Bobby is such a Chuck Norris fan, he names his sons Walker and Texas Ranger.
Will Ferrell's oddball creation — is there any other kind of Will Ferrell creation? — is a bullheaded dynamo of speedlust and self-aggrandization. Like his film, "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," Ferrell starts off hilarious and lovable but gradually wears down your nerves like peeled-out tires.
A considerable acting talent as well as a comedic force, Ferrell does his best work in the beginning of the film, when Ricky Bobby ascends from unheralded, soft-spoken jack man to phenom racecar driver. In his first post-race interview, Ricky Bobby is a squint-eyed mutterer who doesn't know what to do with his hands. The film could have done more with the awkward guy and saved his transformation into a diva for the second act.
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As it stands, "Talladega Nights" starts off flying but burns out hard after a sublime opening 20 minutes, easing off into cruise control before its inevitable crash. Similar to "The Benchwarmers," the film as a whole is something of a dud, but the beginning packs more gut-busters than you'll find in the entire running time of the other summer comedies like "Little Man" and "Clerks II."
Ferrell and director Adam McKay collaborate on the script, just as they did on "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" (2004). Their last film was a clunky satire of the 1970s TV news industry that people either think is the funniest thing ever made or duller than a cricket match. Even though I'm firmly in the latter group, I respected the comedy's heedless insistence on sticking to its oddball wavelength. It's a movie made by folks who want to amuse themselves, and the audience is only a secondary concern.
This time the boys put NASCAR culture to the skids, shifting their freakish gusto hard into overdrive from the opening gun.
Painfully awkward throwaway jokes are the McKay-Ferrell team's specialty. An unnecessary, wildly audacious scene in which Ricky Bobby says grace at the dinner table is classic. Likewise is the underdeveloped rapport between Ricky Bobby and his sidekick, Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), a fellow racer who serves as a loyal wingman on and off the track. When Ricky Bobby and his groupie wife, Carley (Leslie Bibb), start to make out in the dining room, Cal offers to hold up her hair so it doesn't get in the food.
Once the story kicks in and the thrust shifts to advancing the narrative, the humor dies down. A sneering Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) steps into Ricky's scene and tries to muscle him out. Jean is everything Ricky Bobby isn't — cultured, French, gay and not funny. The usual "Rocky III" sports-flick formula kicks in, with Ricky Bobby suffering a downfall, re-inventing himself and then struggling to return to the apex.
Excuse the viewers if they fall asleep at the wheel.
review
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
**1/2
Rated: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language, drug references and brief comic violence
Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb
Director: Adam McKay
Family call: Too vulgar for younger kids
Running time: 110 minutes
Opens Friday at: Park Place, El Con, Century Park, Foothills, DeAnza, Cinemark, Desert Sky
