Talladega Nights
Screenplay written by: Will Farrell, Adam McKay
Actors: Will Farrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary
Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb, and Amy Adams
Directed by: Adam McKay
Rated: PG-13 (Crude and sexual humor, language, drug references,
brief comic violence)
Talladega Nights
Screenplay written by: Will Farrell, Adam McKay
Actors: Will Farrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, Leslie Bibb, and Amy Adams
Directed by: Adam McKay
Rated: PG-13 (Crude and sexual humor, language, drug references, brief comic violence)
With an over-the-top enthusiasm for “going fast”, Ricky Bobby (Will Farrell) knew what he wanted to do since he was a little boy in North Carolina when his often-absent stock car racing father (Gary Cole) made racing the only worthwhile pursuit in life. Soon dim-minded Ricky Bobby becomes a national NASCAR hero whose “win at all costs” approach makes him a national hero and worthy of a sexy bubble gum-popping trophy wife (Leslie Bibb). He and his childhood friend and loyal racing partner, Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), are the track’s favorite duo, exciting fans by “sling-shotting” to finish in top spots – with Ricky Bobby always leading the pack. When a flamboyant French Formula One driver, Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), challenges him for the supremacy of NASCAR, Ricky Bobby must face his own demons and fight for his place as racing’s top driver.
He Said: NASCAR fans, be ready to be seriously lampooned. You will be hard-pressed to find a more disrespectfully humorous gathering of characters formulated on every imaginable stereotype of car racing buffs. From amateurs in American county fair races, to professionals on the Formula One circuit in Europe, no one was safe. However, you won’t necessarily care that you are being subjected to such low humor because you’ll laugh despite yourself – just as you do in the privacy of your living room where no one will know you are laughing at ludicrous skits on Saturday nights. I wouldn’t recommend this film to anyone with a sophisticated sense of humor, but with “crude and sexual humor, language, drug references, and brief comic violence” and Will Farrell’s dead-pan humor, what’s not to like?
On the R&R Scale (1-10):
6 for script: Not much inventiveness.
6 for direction: Action shots actually fairly good.
7 for acting: Humorous characters were just that.
5 for plot: OK, but no stretch of the imagination or creativity.
6 for entertainment Value: You’ll laugh.
6.0 Overall
She Said: Please repeat after me: Oh, please, let the lack of quality in summer movies be over soon. Will Farrell’s cheap shots at a laugh with his brand of nothing-is-sacred “Saturday Night Live” humor was alive and well in “Talladega Nights.” With every insultingly stereotypical notion imaginable of a Southern and Midwestern NASCAR devotee’s mentality and the most screen time that Applebee’s has ever had, it continually poked fun at the whole notion of any car-racing scenario. Even European Formula One racing was not safe. Your intellect will know better than to laugh, but you won’t be able to keep from at least smiling because the script is so deliberately trite, cliche, stereotypical and completely irreverent in every regard. Therein lays its only entertainment value, but I’m over 14 years of age so consider the source.
On the R&R Scale (1-10):
5 for script: Succeeded in intention to pun and stereotype with insultingly low humor.
5 for direction: Some good race sequences.
5 for acting: “Chicago” star John C. Reilly, fairly good, the rest deliberately marginal.
4 for plot: Thin and predictable.
5 for entertainment Value: Only humor made it endurable.
4.8 overall
