An extremely popular, macho and sexist news anchorman named Ron Burgundy stars in a film set during the 1970s, at which time men ruled the airwaves and women were just starting to move up in the ranks. Upset (and confused) by the whole women’s lib movement, Ron and his pack of chauvinistic newscaster sidekicks get especially riled up when a pretty blonde with brains joins their team. Hilarity ensues.
Humor is subjective. I’ve stated this many times in the past and want to re-iterate it here because much of what is funny to one person may not necessarily be funny to another. In fact, one’s age, state of mind, mood and maturity generally plays into humor as well, such that even I’ve laughed my ass off at certain movies at certain points in my life, only to watch them again years later, trying to figure out what the shit I ever found to be humorous in them in the first place. Which brings me to ANCHORMAN, a film starring the straight-faced wonder that is Will Ferrell in what is likely to be a motion picture closest to his brand of humor than any other in which he’s starred so far (he co-wrote this one as well) I enjoyed this film’s trailers and many of its online clips and am proud to report that the movie itself follows in that same vein with laughs galore, many gregarious characters, Ferrell at the top of his craft and even a surprisingly sturdy and charming turn by the lovely Christina Applegate (I thought she might be the weak link here, but she fills the bill perfectly) The movie is cast around Burgundy’s dry and sexist humor, but it also punches in plenty goofball scenarios including rival news teams gathering for “gang” fights, plenty of over-the-top “retardedness” from one of the film’s scene stealers named Brick, a barking dog who “speaks”, as well as cameos on top of cameos on top of cameos from many of Ferrell’s past cast-mates (“That’s how I roll, bro-seph!”)
An effective lead character is sometimes hurt by a surrounding cast of no-nothings, but that’s not the case here either. Everyone else in this film comes to play, and each character carves a nice, if not very funny, place for themselves around Burgundy’s home-base. I found myself laughing consistently throughout this entire movie and at the end of the day, you really can’t ask for much more than that from any comedy. One thing that surprised me greatly was the number of scenes from the trailer that were NOT in the movie though. Director Adam McKay recently stated that he had enough material left over after cutting the film that he could make another movie to add on to this one’s DVD, and considering how many scenes I noticed were absent, I could definitely see that happening. That said, the humor left in this film was funny enough, and as opposed to most movies that “lose” their consistency by their finales, this one actually peppered everything up with a cutesy, and quite entertaining, ending that worked (I absolutely adored the conversation between the dog and the bears…classic stuff!) The film’s humor might not be for everyone, but if you laughed at the film’s trailer or simply enjoy most of Ferrell’s “shtick”, there should be plenty in here to make this flick one of your faves of the summer (if not, the year)