Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Review

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby starring Will Ferrell as a studly Nascar Racer is hilarious. I loved it. It could have been funnier, but I presume Nascar had certain things they would and wouldn’t allow and some of the more raunchy and perverted jokes were left out. Nascar southern culture is so easy to make fun of. Will Ferrell does his standard role as the dimwitted, temperamental but lovable goof Ricky Bobby. He lives by the motto he got from his father, “If you’re not first, you’re last!”. He takes this to extremes and becomes a racing sensation. He quickly learns how to deal with the fame and fortune and starts a family with a racing groupie and has two sons, Walker and Texas Ranger. They are trash talking hoodlums that are only encouraged by their parents. Ricky falls from his perch on top of the racing world when a gay frenchman comes to Nascar and beats him. He gets into a terrible accident and loses his willingness to “go fast”. This quickly gets him booted from his racing team and his wife leaves him for his best friend and teammate. Ricky is forced to go back to the basics and with a little help from his loserish father, gets suited up for one last return to action to reclaim his throne.

My favorite line in the movie is actually too perverse for me to put in this review because I know my mother will probably read this. Let me just say it has to do with one character describing his poses for Playgirl magazine. I was cracking up the whole time, but honestly, not everyone seems to get a kick out of it. I was sitting in a packed theater so I was right next to a super super hot girl and I kept looking over to see if she was laughing but she seemed to be there only as an accessory for her boyfriend. I thought she might be asleep. Anyway, the movie is formulaic and predictable and actually kind of gets a little slow in a few spots, but so does the “The 40 year old Virgin“, which is the funniest movie I’ve seen in the last few years. One amazing aspect of this movies was how awesome the races looked. They did a fantastic job in capturing the speed and excitement of a race including the crashes. There were a few shots that wowed me and I’m not easily wowed. (click here for a little more info about shooting the stunts and to watch a few video clips of the actual crashes)

I really don’t have any problems telling you to go see this movie if you like this sort of comedy. It’s not for everyone, but the poking fun at Nascar culture was great and it had me slapping my knee throughout.