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Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

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Trailer for "Talladega Nights"

If you have to ask what Talladega is (like I did), you’re probably not the market for this movie. Located in North Carolina, it’s NASCAR’s biggest venue, where 200,000 people can sit and watch cars drive around in a circle for hours. Which makes this the second Hollywood would-be blockbuster of the summer to woo that crowd. But if you found Pixar’s Cars to be a bit lackluster, wait until you see what’s waiting for you here. Talladega Nights was directed by Adam McKay with a script credited to himself and star Will Ferrell, the duo who had a hit with Anchorman. I say “credited” because there really doesn’t seem to have been a script involved. It plays as if all involved simply assumed that the idea of Ferrell as a numbskull NASCAR racer was such comic gold that all they had to do was turn on the cameras and the laughs would flow. The result is a badly directed and sloppily edited movie that approaches its few funny ideas like a cat watching fish in an aquarium: It sees them, it wants them, but it has no idea how to get them. The only moderately amusing note comes from Sacha Baron Cohen (star of HBO’s Da Ali G. Show) as a gay Frenchman who competes for Bobby’s title, and even he is more weird than actually funny. (His French accent can only be described as Inspector Clouseau playing Vito Corleone.) Don’t just take my word for it: The tiny audience who showed up for the screening was the smallest I’ve ever seen for a studio preview. Docked a further point (not that it has any to lose) for sinking to a new depth in product placement: The climactic scene is actually interrupted for a commercial, featuring a fast food restaurant prominently featured in the film.