Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby (DVD)

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I'm not a NASCAR fan, and though it runs smack through my town, I don't even get my kicks on Route 66. But I am a fan of Will Ferrell. I thought he was hilarious in "Elf" and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," I felt his comic sensibilities were perfect in "Curious George," and it impressed the heck out of me that he took smaller roles in films like "The Producers" and made them memorable. I'll remember this film for quite a while, too.

Ferrell co-wrote "Talladega Nights" with director Adam McKay, who previously collaborated with him on "Anchorman." Why NASCAR this time? Out of curiosity, I looked up the Talladega Superspeedway near Birmingham, Alabama, where much of the movie was shot (the rest was filmed at the North Carolina Speedway). It shocked me to learn that the Talladega Superspeedway has 143,000 seats, plus room for thousands more in a 212-acre infield. By comparison, the largest major league ballpark is New York's Shea Stadium, which seats a mere 57,300, and the largest NFL stadium is FedEx Field in Washington, D.C., which only accommodates some 80,000.

In other words, NASCAR is huge, and since nobody had done a film about the circuit, it was ripe for a Friar's Club-style roasting. As it turns out, the NASCAR subculture is so American than it makes Mom and apple pie look like cheap imports. And "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" is a laugh-out-loud film that manages to satirize the NASCAR culture while still retaining an apparent fondness for the drivers, their crews, and the rabid fans. Maybe that's why "Talladega Nights" had the full blessing and cooperation of NASCAR. It pokes fun of the characters, not the sport or the fans who love to watch the races and the wrecks.

It's also more than a Will Ferrell vehicle. Oh, sure, Ferrell is in most of the scenes, but playing opposite different people, he feels like half of a rotating comedy team. Gary Cole ("The Brady Bunch Movie"), for example, is a riot as Ricky Bobby's father, a self-professed semi-professional race car driver and an amateur tattoo artist. He has some very funny scenes with Ferrell later in the film, but he first turns up on Dad's day at the boy's school 15 years earlier, peeling out in the school parking lot after telling his son not to listen to his loser teacher. "If you ain't first, you're last," he tells Ricky Bobby, and that impresses the boy so much that he turns into a kamikaze driver.

Like the squire in "A Knight's Tale," Ricky Bobby gets his chance when the big guy he's working for goes down. The sponsor decides to go with ANYONE on crew besides the lollygagging lead driver, and Ricky Bobby steps up, goes ballistic, and endears himself to fans for his win-or-crash approach to racing. The scenes with John C. Reilly, who plays Ricky Bobby's childhood friend and the number two driver on the Wonder Bread team, are a real hoot. You find yourself looking back and forth to each of them as they play a couple of guys who aren't that bright and who embrace redneck culture like born-again country music fans. Their expressions and in-character ramblings are as funny as anything you'll see in a character comedy, and Reilly is just as good as Ferrell. So, for that matter, is Leslie Bibb, who plays Carley, Ricky Bobby's "smokin' hot wife" who's all about the money. She plays off Ferrell as well as Gracie Allen did with her husband, George Burns, only they're all so darned tongue-in-cheek that it's hard to tell who's the straight man and who's the cut-up.

Even the boys who play the couple's offspring, Walker and Texas Ranger, are riotous in their roles. Then again, what kid wouldn't love the chance to threaten Grandpa, sass their parents, swear like sailors, and destroy things for sport? But things really climax for Ricky Bobby when he's in a destructive crash, one which, to borrow a word from "Elf," is gynormous. The toast of NASCAR becomes toast, and while Ricky Bobby is in the hospital and rehab, a few things change. He loses Carley to his best friend, and he loses the spotlight to a gay French driver (Sacha Baron Cohen). But then his mantra kicks in, and Ricky Bobby is ready to kick some ass again. En route to a "Ben-Hur" style finish, he and his NASCAR cronies also manage to provide a lot of laughs.