Posted on Fri, Aug. 04, 2006

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It's the pits

'Talladega Nights' takes one wrong turn after another

By CHRISTOPHER KELLY

STAR-TELEGRAM FILM CRITIC

Sony Pictures

In Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby -- an Adam Sandler-style comedy so juvenile and mean-spirited that even Adam Sandler has outgrown it -- Will Ferrell plays a successful NASCAR driver with a multimillion-dollar mansion, a hot-to-trot wife (Leslie Bibb) and a devoted best friend (John C. Reilly). What the emotionally stunted Ricky Bobby is still searching for, however, is the affection of his long-lost father (Gary Cole), whom he hasn't seen in two decades. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Cinema of the Man-Child -- which, this summer, has also given us The Break-Up, Nacho Libre, Click and You, Me and Dupree -- knows the rest: Ricky will experience a debilitating failure; he will be forced to reach deep inside himself and find strength and maturity he didn't know he had; eventually, he will emerge a much better man. All that, and there will be plenty of poop jokes along the way.

Might now be a good time to finally cry uncle? Talladega Nights isn't much different from the likes of The Waterboy or Happy Gilmore (also about Man-Children who find glory in sports), or from Ferrell's previous comedies Elf, Old School and Anchorman -- but it's so shrill and sloppily constructed that it feels like an insult to the audience. Aiming low is one thing; not even trying is quite another. And while there's nothing wrong with old-fashioned, infantile humor (the American comedy film tradition has a long history of it, dating back to Mack Sennett and the silent era), the infantilism in this movie is teetering on the pathological. The jokes divide between ones that mock characters' physical appearances and ones that mock their homosexuality. When all else fails (which is often) the filmmakers resort to having Ricky Bobby's preteen children Walker (Houston Tumlin) and Texas Ranger (Grayson Russell) cuss up a storm. And if that doesn't smack of desperation, well, what about the two scenes featuring Ferrell running around in his underwear, a la his famous Old School naked jog? This movie isn't even good enough to be called creatively bankrupt.

As with so many of the Man-Child movies, there isn't a plot here so much as an excuse to have former Saturday Night Live cast members stage a series of embarrassingly unfunny skits, all of which drag on into oblivion. Ricky Bobby is at the top of his racing game when his corporate sponsor decides to hire another driver -- a gay Frenchman whose accent sounds like a severe speech impediment. (He's played by the gifted Sacha Baron Cohen, of Da Ali G Show fame; here's hoping his paycheck was a fat one.) When Ricky Bobby gets into a horrible wreck and his wife decides to divorce him and marry his best friend, he finds himself back home with his mother (Jane Lynch), working as a dejected pizza delivery man. That's when his dear old papa comes along to save the day, by encouraging Ricky to conquer his fear of driving by stepping into a car with a live cougar.

Directed by Adam McKay, and written by McKay and Ferrell (they previously collaborated on Anchorman), Talladega Nights has a couple of bright spots, mostly courtesy of the supporting actors (especially Lynch and Amy Adams as Ricky's post-breakdown girlfriend), who deserve much better. But those few laughs are mitigated by the sheer bile at this movie's core -- it's a comic sensibility that says the only way to generate humor is by having people treat one another cruelly. As for this film's baffling obsession with men kissing and slapping each other's backsides, it makes the latent homoeroticism of something like Dodgeball (where the Man-Children donned spandex suits and threw rubber balls at one another for 90 excruciating minutes) seem positively healthy.

Presumably Talladega Nights will have its defenders -- the "Dude, it's just a comedy, don't take it so seriously" set. But it's those low standards that are slowly but certainly crippling the movie industry: Audiences no longer demand quality, they demand distraction. Industry executives demand even less -- they just try to figure out how to keep their biggest stars happy, usually by allowing them to create inane vanity projects like this one.

But how much longer can you keep serving up garbage before the stench becomes overpowering? Talladega Nights is so dreadful it makes you wonder if you'll ever want to see another movie again.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Director: Adam McKay

Stars: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly

Running time: 105 min.

Rating: PG-13 (crude and sexual humor, strong language, drug content, mild violence)

GRADE: D-