Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I'm typing up two reviews for you folks today... for two completely different movies. The first up is TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY, after which I will dive into a review of the flick I saw tonight: Oliver Stone's WORLD TRADE CENTER.
A little set up for Ricky Bobby... The screening was held a theater called Westgate quite close to where I live in South Austin. It wasn't very chaotic to get in, although there were quite a few people who turned up for the free screening. I ended up sitting in the row in front of the bottom row of the stadium seating part and had two empty seats next to me. I knew they were going to fill up before the film rolled, but I didn't quite expect to see what sat down next to me.
Now, I'm not one to demean people for their lifestyles, but one of the reasons why I was excited to see TALLADEGA NIGHTS was I love any chance to make fun of rednecks. Not southerners. Southerners and hillbillies aren't the same thing and I don't think that if you have an accent you are a hick. Hell, I live in Texas... granted, Austin isn't like the rest of Texas, but I've been all around the South, from Texas to Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, the Virginias... and I've met some really nice people in all these places, people that defy the stereotype of the ignorant hillbilly. And then I've met many who lived up to that stereotype.
That stereotype and his wife sat down next to me at this screening. First off, the smell of Marlboros was so pungent and thick that I had trouble breathing. It was like Pigpen's dirt cloud that follows him everywhere, except it just radiated off this couple. The wife was blonde and overweight. Not super fat, but definitely looked like she could have been a looker in high school and then just let go. Her husband was bigger than she and was sporting the most awesomely cared for mullets I've probably ever seen in person. It was real short on the sides and in the front, but the back went down, rippled like he used a curling iron before going out, ending at about his mid-shoulders.
The pre-movie conversation that I overheard from Mr. Mullet was all about the first time he drank a Shiner Boch. His story didn't really have any details to it... like where he was when it happened or why it was special, just that he liked to drink Shiner Boch and he remembered the first time well.
I was genuinely worried the movie couldn't be as entertaining as this couple was.
Luckily for me two things happened fairly quickly. First, the film starts out just as funny as I was hoping it was going to be and secondly there came a moment maybe 25 minutes into the movie that made me smile and made the couple sitting next to me walk out of the film.
There's a sequence early on in the story where Ricky Bobby is at the top of his game. He's celebrating at a bar with his friends when all of a sudden the juke box stops playing rock-a-billy and starts playing Jazz. The rednecks don't understand it. What is that noise? Is something dying? This is our introduction to Sacha Baron Cohen's Jean Girard, a French driver who has come to America to challenge the best Nascar driver we have to offer: Ricky Bobby. I smiled here because I've recently become initiated into the cult of Cohen thanks to a 6 or so minute clip of his next film, BORAT, that screened at Comic-Con and just about killed me inside I was laughing so hard.
I also smiled because in this introductory sequence we find out Jean Girard is married... to a man named Gregory (Andy Richter). The scene ends with Cohen and Richter kissing... Not a soulful tongue wrestle of a kiss, but a funny lips-pressed-together-in-a-really-hard-and-uncomfortable-way type kiss. This was too much for our Marlboro smoking and Shiner drinking mulleted friends and they stood right up and left.
To be perfectly fair, I don't know if our friends specifically left because of the gay stuff... It could have been seeing the film wasn't a drama dedicated to the majesty and wonderment of the greatest gift God gave the workin' man: NASCAR... and the gay stuff. I don't know, but I could breath again, so I don't really care why they left.
On the whole, the movie didn't let me down. There wasn't a point in the film or a character that didn't work for me. I personally prefer ANCHORMAN to this flick. ANCHORMAN had me laughing harder, but TALLADEGA NIGHTS had me laughing pretty constantly, too. It might just boil down to a quotability factor... however, it's only been 2 days and already my friends are saying "Shake and Bake" while punching fists, so after a few repeat viewings who knows?
Will Ferrell is as good as he ever was in the flick and once again shoulders the main character with ease. The standouts in the film for me, though, were Gary Cole (who is always wonderful) as Ricky Bobby's absentee daddy, Cohen as a surprisingly multi-layered French villain and Houston Tumlin and Grayson Russell who play Ricky Bobby's kids, Walker and Texas Ranger. The kids have a great, foul-mouthed escapade in the first half of the film that only gets better in the second half when they completely change gears. And I mistook Grayson for Trevor Heins from WONDER SHOWZEN... I don't know what that means, but since I think Trevor is the coolest kid ever I guess that's a good thing.
Much like ANCHORMAN, Ferrell is surrounded by talented people that bring the funny. Michael Clarke Duncan has one scene in a hospital that would be a show-stealer in any other movie (he also has one of the best gag-reel moments during the end credits). John C. Reilly is just the man. He rocks hard in the flick, playing Ricky Bobby's best friend. Jane Lynch (from ANCHORMAN) is great as Ricky's momma and her interaction with her grandchildren are classic moments. Amy Adams is hot. David Koechner is kind of wasted here... I wonder if he has a bigger role that ended up on the editing room floor. As it is in the flick he has only a few lines of dialogue, but his character isn't really a cameo type appearance, you know?
My tastes on redneck comedies is this: I love RUN, RONNIE, RUN. I hate JOE DIRT. So, now ya' know.
TALLADEGA NIGHTS is a really funny movie. I wasn't disappointed. And now I have a good hillbilly story. Thanks Adam McKay!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
