Making comedies that feature at its centre, characters who are basically unpleasant require a deft hand. It requires the character(s) to be fleshed out, some explanation as to why they act the way they do, a certain amount of come-uppance meted out to help the audience empathise and supremely charismatic actors to inhabit the rule, digging deep to uncover some intriguing personality facet that notches the characters' negativity a few rungs above loathsome to intriguing. And since the genre IS comedy, whatever bad after taste left behind by the Unpleasant Lead's selfish,moronic or mean-spirited nature needs to be mitigated by hefty doses of laugh out loud moments of inspired humour and brilliant gags.In that sense, Talladega Nights:The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby works (to an extent) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend fails remarkably.
Talladega Nights (henceforth abbreviated to TN) is a Will Ferrell comedy through and through. And like his previous collaboration with director Adam McKay,"Anchorman:The Legend Of Ron Burgundy", TN takes a tried and tested(and abused) plot-line and zaps it with moments of bizarre,surreal comedy spiced with a nasty irreverent edge that conveniently helps you forget,albeit only occassionally, of its dog-eared origins.
Take, for instance the quote that opens the movie:
"America is about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed"
Immediately after that you learn that the quote supposedly originated from...ELEANOR ROOSEVELT!!!!
Not a frame of film has been seen and it's already elicited one hearty chuckle from me!
It's that kind of perverse OUT THERE humour that keeps TN from tipping over into generic hog wash. For, going by the plot alone TN isn't worth the beer-stained napkin it was scribbled on.
Ferrell is Ricky Bobby,the name and the first scene showing his delivery in a souped up car driven by a Southern-Accent spewing Gary Cole(who's always a pleasure to watch)travelling at top speed on a country side back road effectively signalling its clear cut intention to lampoon all things red-neck.
And what better milieu to stage this in than that most hallowed of all Southern-Fried institutions:NASCAR which is where a grown up Ricky thrives in as a celebrated racer(after taking to heart one of his absentee and frequently high-on-weed dad's dictums:"if you ain't first,you're last").
Digs at Drag Racing, its pervasive corporate sponsorship that has Ricky spewing Chinese to sell Oriental crackers, Ricky's mansion with multiple SUVs parked in front, his blonde,bitchy trophy Wife, foul mouthed sons called Walker and Texas Ranger ("If we wanted 'em to be wussies, we woulda named them Dr.Quinn and Medicine Woman") and delinquent weed-smoking father so consistently take the mickey out of the Red States that it's US148mil gross at the box-office is astounding( did the very people who no doubt formed its core audience know they were being lampooned?)
As mentioned,the plot's about as disposable as day-old soiled nappies.
Since Ricky is an arrrogant,selfish and shallow person,letting his potty mouthed kids insult their maternal grandfather hogging the lime-light while refusing best friend and team mate Cal Naughton Jr.(John C. McGinley) a shot at the title and who sportingly comes in second, part of a routine they call "Shake 'N' Bake" which allows Ricky to win every time, we know come-uppance that sets him on the road to humility is just around the bend.
It comes in the form of a very French and very GayJean Girrard(Played by Sacha "Ali G/Borat" Baron Cohen sporting not so much a French accent as a French Accent Americans think the French have), a rival driver hired by Ricky's team owner to put him in his place. And after a spectacular crash that puts Ricky out of action, that place is in a hospital where Ricky experiences psycho-somatic symptoms of being paralysed. If the last sentence sounds morbid, trust me when I say it's stretched to hilarious form in TN. Beginning with Ricky's imaginary "I'm on fire" reaction to his stripping to his undies(in front of a capacity crowd) and running around yelling "Help Me Jesus! Help Me Jewish God!Help Me Tom Cruise! Use your witchcraft to put out this fire!" and culminating in a hospital stay that sees him stab himself(with 2 knives) to convince his friends he's paralysed, it's Ferrell firing on all comedic cyliners.
Note I've digressed from the plot again and that's because it's simply not what keeps this movie cooking.
YOU KNOW.....Ricky's going to lose house,wife and kids on account of not being able to get behind a wheel of a car and be reduced to a penury existence delivering pizzas.
YOU KNOW..... that the dead beat dad is going to show up playing Obi-Wan to Ricky's Luke Skywalker,helping him overcome his driving fear(by among other tactics, getting him to drive with a live cougar in the passenger seat and after that, riving blindfolded ["you don't need to see to drive son. FEEL the car"]
YOU KNOW.....he overcomes his phobia to race again to reclaim what he's lost.
It's the moments of inspired humour that keep you hooked:
-A dinner table saying of Grace that teeters on the brink of sacrilege.
"Dear 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, hasn't even said his first word yet..."
- Ricky's wife tearfully telling the doctor she's decided to pull the plug, in spite of the fact that he's merely taking a nap
- Jean Girrard earning the wrath of patrons in a bar by playing jazz on the jukebox.
" We don't play jazz here'" retorts an irate patron
"Then why do you have it in your jukebox," enquires the Frenchman
"We keep it there for profiling purposes," dead pans the bartender.
There are many more of such inspired moments scattered throughout this flick so grab a beer , sit yo' ass down and help yourself to a heaping helping of Southern Fried Humour. TN is what Dukes Of Hazzard should have been (and missed by a long mile).
And speaking of misses..
My Super Ex-Girlfriend had all the potential to be a comedic gem. Superhero Angst, while dealt with effectively in its more dramatic incarnations (Hulk,Spider-Man) has rarely been subject matter for a comedy. Which is surprising, for it's a fertile Laugh-Pool to be mined.
Take for example, the premise of a tall,leggy,blond and beautiful super-heroine who is also by turns neurotic,jealous,needy and clingy. The paradox alone, in the hands of a capable director, is potential COMEDY GOLD. And My Super Ex-Girlfriend(henceforth referred to as MSEG) has one with outstanding, albeit dated, pedigree. Ivan Reitman, who gave us the inventive Ghostbusters flicks and 2 superior Schwarzenegger comic vehicles(Twins & Kindergarten Cop) before faltering with the 3rd one(Junior) , is a director supremely suited to the comedy genre and in Uma Thurman, you have one of the most interesting actresses(in my humble opinion) next to Rachael McAdams working today.
So,what went so bloody wrong?
After all, Uma Thurman nails her role,both as blonde superhero G-Girl and her mousy,bespectacled alter-ego Jenny Jones. She especially fleshes out,with sometimes creepy intensity, her characters' deep-seated insecurities which cause havoc and ultimately destroys her relationship with Architect Matt Saunders(Luke"Brother of Owen" Wilson).
Firstly, insecurity in a realtionship is no laughing matter and to transform it into one, one of 2 things need to be accomplished effectively.
Firstly, a credible enough reason needs be there to convince you why a girl who looks like she could qualify for next weeks' Vogue spread, who can fly to and suck the fire out of a burning building all in the time it takes for her date to be convinced she just stepped into the ladies, is so wracked with doubt and uncertainty.
Secondly, the object of her affections and later,her scorned wrath needs to be sympathetic and genuinely likeable.
Neither happens.
G-Girl's self doubt is never adequately explained and it doesn't help that her origin back-story doesn't occur until well after the movies' half-way point and does nothing to shed light on the matter(she's a nerd, touches a crashed meteor, turns blonde,gorgeous and super-powered and is nerd no more.So..is it Delayed or Dormant Insecurity we're dealing with here?)
Wilson's character is an insipid jerk, nursing a crush for a colleague who is attached, latches onto our heroine , then dumps her on the advice of a horny friend and quickly hops into the sack with the colleague once she's (conveniently) un-attached.And in a destestable move later,he even collaborates with the villain to strip G-Girl of her powers! Oh the cad! As a result, we don't quite feel the empathy we should even when she almost fries his pet-goldfish with heat-vision, puts his car on a geo-synchronous orbit into space,crashes through his ceiling twice, ruins his presentation while stripping him naked in the process and tosses a live shark into his living room. (It's Hell Hath No Fury..type Bitchy and Vindictive Woman Stereotype will earn it no kudos among feminists either)
Throw in a lame villain, a lamer love triangle( although the Other Woman is an admittedly sweet Anna Faris) and a limp rag of a climax, and this superhero take on"Fatal Attraction " unlike it's caped heroine,never takes off.
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