Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

What’s the Story?

At an early age, Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) falls in love with speed. As an adult, Ricky goes from NASCAR pit crew member to a driving partnership with teammate Cal Naughton (John C. Reilly): They perfect a tag-teaming system they call "shake 'n' bake," by which Cal maneuvers on the track in ways that always allow Ricky to win. Ricky turns out to be an ungracious winner, though. He marries a gold-digging busty blond, Carley (Leslie Bibb), turns out a couple of obnoxious sons, and gets rich thanks to endorsement contracts. While he keeps Cal close, their relationship is premised on Ricky's superiority and his friend's abject subservience. All this ends when a challenger appears on the circuit. The French-born Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) is everything Ricky is not: literate, witty, and openly gay. He's also a very good driver and brutally efficient: On their first encounter in a bar, Jean breaks Ricky's arm, thus putting him out of racing commission. When Ricky returns to the track, he gets in an accident so traumatizing that he believes he's paralyzed. Losing his riches, wife, and contracts, Ricky must then struggle back to the top of his heap.

Is It Any Good?

Both vulgar and cheerful, like most other Will Ferrell movies, TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY is also slightly tricky. It makes fun of multiple targets, using equally obnoxious tactics. No one is spared: It mocks stereotypically "redneck" NASCAR culture as well as other groups (gays, foreigners, and intellectuals). It's a parody, but kids may miss the point.

While this story is simple enough, the execution is often startlingly maladroit. While there is plainly an enthusiastic audience for the Anchorman school of filmmaking, this incarnation seems more a string of skits (namely, opportunities for Ferrell to act silly, which he does well) than a movie per se. In fact, the closing credits over outtakes is the funnier version of this approach. So if you go, stay through to the end.