Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina
Applegate
Cert: 12a
Released:10th September 2004
Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is the news anchorman that everyone in
1970’s
San Diego
loves to watch. He
is like a rock star who is adored by men and women alike and he knows it.
But his luxurious hedonistic
lifestyle starts to crumble when he meets new reporter, Veronica Corningstone
(Applegate), whose chief ambition is to infiltrate the male dominated profession
to become anchor herself. The pair fall for each other and then end up competing
for the prized position.
This is the second comedy this year that has taken an inconsequential
subject matter, outlined it with an unsurprising plot, injected it with
set-pieces of ridiculousness and slap-stick, and given it a long and, perhaps,
pretentious title (see also Dodgeball: A
True Underdog Story).
I’ve liked Ferrell. He’s created
some great quirky characters in some very funny films, but he’s always been the
nutty sidekick served in small portions. Now he’s the nutty lead and you have to
watch him for 90 minutes.
I’ve not seen Elf so can’t
comment on how this film relates to his previous attempt at being the leading
man but I did find Anchorman to be too much to handle. Don’t get me wrong,
it has some very funny moments in those set pieces but it’s when Ferrell is
still trying to be quirky during the in between bits (storyline, plot guiding,
character emoting, etc).
This inability to succeed in getting his comic persona to convincingly
perform is compensated by his quirkier
sidekicks of fellow newsmen; each one coming with his own personal social
dysfunction; they’re funny but you probably wouldn’t want to watch one of them
get his own film because it would just get tiresome after a while. A good comedy
character is either so madcap that they are beyond normality and reduced to
bite-size chunks, or slightly madcap with extra character dimensions that the
film can take time to explore.
It also seems de rigueur these days for these type of films to include as
many ‘comedy pal’ cameos as possible; I think Anchorman may have even beaten Around The World In 80
Days in that stake but again seemed to
be trying to make up for something lacking elsewhere.
Everyone performed well; specifically Applegate was a credible straight
match for Ferrell and Steve Carell performed another gem of comedy following his
outrageous performance as anchorman in Bruce Almighty (getting typecast?).
Certainly not an unfunny film, as such, but perhaps could have been
better if it had been The Legend of
‘Someone Else’ with Ron Burgundy as quirky, comedy side-kick.
