Anchorman - La leggenda di Ron Burgundy

This summer I've seen several intentionally stupid funny movies, and enjoyed them. Adam McKay's "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" is no exception. Seems that my taste for high concept cinema has been influenced by the summer-- well not really. This movie written by McKay and it's star Will Ferrell is an outrageous and completely over the top comedy. Applaud Will Ferrell as the mind bendingly stupid and self absorbed, San Diego newscaster, Ron Burgundy. Will Ferrell is genius in playing Ron straight without character dispersions. Ferrell creates a great deadpan sense with his cohabiting dog, Baxter, and the fact that his character Ron Burgundy will read ANYTHING on the teleprompter, his tragic flaw, well at least one of several, is priceless. Ferrell also never crosses the line of being a complete jerk which is an amazing accomplishment. In fact, Ferrell gives Ron a muted charm-- he really does grow on you.

Basically, "Anchorman" is an extended sitcom. Ron is informed by his station manager, Ed (a funny Fred Willard), that he will have a co-anchor, Veronica Corningstone (a hot Christina Applegate). Turns out that Veronica was a woman whom was immune to Ron's vast charm at a wild news crew party. Veronica is beautiful, ambitious, and smart. She too has aspirations of being a Network Anchor. The Boys Club news crew which include sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner), feature story guy Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), and the dumb as a post weatherman Brick Tamland (Steven Carell) all make their play for Veronica. However, she falls for Ron in spite of himself. Ron eventually woos her affections in a totally wacky jazz flute display. The screen writing is so skewed in a good way, and it has absolutely no shame. There is a classic scene with Ron's dog Baxter, and a bridge that according to my bud, John, shatters a fundamental script writing rule. In another memorable scene Ron gives an erroneous translation of the name San Diego to Veronica that is hilarious. "Anchorman" also benefits from cameos of talented actors, most notably Vince Vaughn as Wes Mantooth, the rival station anchor. Christina Applegate looks great, and truly has a talent for comedy.

"Anchorman" is completely over the top, and ignores any boundaries. That really makes it work. "Anchorman" is broad stroke farce done well. Will Ferrell demonstrates great comedic gifts. I want to see what he creates next. For now, "Anchorman" is just great fun, and very funny stuff.

I had been avoiding myself from watching 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' for a long time because I thought that it would be another one of those wannabe non-funny comedies. I liked Ferrell a lot in comedies like 'Legally Blonde' and 'Stranger Than Fiction' where he really downplays the humour but I saw some of his Saturday Night Live sketches and many were plain awful. Anyway, I later found out that the cast also included Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell and so I was curious to how Ferrell works with these talented comedy actors.

So that's that and now, after having seen it, I must add that 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' is a laugh riot. It superbly spoofs the 70s. Adam McKay brings together an excellent comedic cast playing colourful characters. Ferrell and Applegate are at the centre of the film and both are stupendous! But the supporting cast that includes David Koechner as a 'macho' wannabe who's actually a closet homosexual, Paul Rudd as a virgin stud, Steven Carell as a mentally stunted weatherman and Fred Willard as the laid back boss equally stand out with their gags and superb comic timing. Just when I was thinking that it would be funny if Vince Vaughn was part of the cast, he appears on screen as the 'deadly' rival. There are also notable cameos by a psychopathic Tim Robbins, a Hispanic Ben Stiller, an armless Luke Wilson and Jack Black as a cruel junkie.

I'd recommend to watch the movie with English subtitles as there are some hilarious lines between Burgundy's dog and a bear which is spoken in animal language. There are so many more laugh-out-loud moments that it's hard for me to single out a particular scene. Which one shall I say? The scene where he plays the flute to impress Veronica, Veronica screaming 'Ron!' (in typical 70's melodramatic style) when he gets fired, the entire bear awakening sequence, the battle between the anchormen, Veronica challenging Ed with her three strengths: screwing, fighting and news-reading ....there's just too many.

While being an out-and-out comedy, it does bring forth some serious issues like gender equality (which was still a problem in the 70s). Though the undertone is serious, it's all presented in a comedic way but it never makes fun of the issue. For example, Veronica is continuously harassed by her male co-workers but she stays strong without succumbing to their rudeness.

'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' is a joyride all the way. Whether one likes the film or not, I'm sure they at least would have a good laugh.

...that genre being "manly men behaving stupidly". Its charm is in the fact that it is not pretending to be anything other than what it is - it does not try to get you to do anything other than laugh. The film is also responsible for giving Steve Carell his breakthrough role as Brick, the news weatherman who can hardly assemble a coherent sentence.

The film centers around Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), a local news anchorman in San Diego at an unspecified time. From the fashions and music, it could be anytime between 1968 and 1975. Ron is basically a lecherous yet likable leisure suit Larry who is mainly a face - he has no real journalistic talents or instincts. He simply reads the news that others report. The trouble begins when the station manager hires a new newswoman, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) who at first is given only fluff pieces to do. The big step forward for Veronica is that she is working as a reporter at all. This was considered women's lib in 1970 - just being admitted to the club. This did not exempt you from all kinds of hazing and sexual harassment, which was considered the price of admission. A romance develops between Ron and Veronica that ends quite abruptly when Ron is late to the set and Veronica goes on in his place. She does so well that she and Ron become co-anchors and the war begins - Veronica against every other man in the newsroom, all who feel threatened by a woman anchoring the news. However, Veronica plays it smart and takes advantage of the fact that Ron will say anything that comes across the teleprompter without even thinking about it.

Normally I don't like these kinds of films at all, but for some reason this one just gets funnier every time I watch it. Especially funny is the conclusion, with actual investigative reporter Bill Kurtis discussing the destinies of everyone at the station.

Apart from spawning multiple memes over the years, this movie also got quite a few laughs out of me. The comedy isn't what you'd call 'high brow' but that's because it's aimed at the 'immature kid' in all of us, and that's why it makes us laugh. "Anchorman 2" was a huge disappointment and I wouldn't recommend that you watch that at all.... Just watch the original and appreciate how good it is.

I went to "Anchorman" expecting another super-mainstream, lowest-common-denominator, SNL-derived romp. Now, these aren't the worst movies in the world, to be sure. "Happy Gilmore" and "Old School" are pretty agreeable ways to while away the time. But usually about an hour in to these affairs, I've had enough of the broadness and predictability, which starts to get downright oppressive. It's not just that they're lowbrow--it's that they're so overwhelmingly, disappointingly conventional.

Luckily, this isn't what "Anchorman" is. "Anchorman" is a refreshingly off-kilter outing from an unlikely source--Will Ferrell, the current reigning lord of middle-of-the-road fratboy Sandlerism. The film has a lot more in common with Mel Brooks and Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker than anything in the SNL family tree. It prizes out-and-out silliness and absurdity over bathroom humor and penis jokes (though there's plenty of the latter, don't worry), and pulls it off admirably. In essence, the key to this stuff is never letting off of the goofiness even for a second--the audience should never be allowed to take anything seriously.

"Anchorman" achieves this with exceedingly silly and bizarre dialogue complemented by killer comic performances from Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Vince Vaughn and Steve Carrel. You'd have to be lobotomized to maintain a straight face through lines like "It's made with bits of real panther. So you know it's good." and "I'm riding a big, furry tractor!" The direction and pacing are also pretty solid at times, and the requisite celeb cameos are very nicely done (especially in one particular scene which I wouldn't dream of ruining).

The film's not without its flaws, certainly. Chief among them is the wasting of one of the best comic character actors in the biz: Fred Willard. If ever there was someone born to play a smarmy local TV newsman, Willard is it. But he's inexplicably cast here as a dull station suit, while David Koechner plods through the sportscaster role that was clearly meant for him--passable but certainly not as inspired as Willard would have been. Also, I think that the story would have benefited if Vaughn and his cronies, the closest thing to villains in this lightheaded romp, had a little more face time.

But these are comparatively minor problems--the point is that Ferrel has given us something that's really funny in a way that's appreciably different from the endless SNL movie-mill. It's not Monty Python, but it is a healthy departure from what has become the comic mainstream. Most importantly, the laughs are frequent, long, and deep--check it out and you won't be disappointed.