Movie Review - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
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2004 / 91 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
The thing that distinguishes Will Farrell from many of his Saturday Night Live comrades is simple. The others always seemed to be about ready to burst out laughing during any sketch. Farrell, on the other hand, seems so wholeheartedly committed to whatever he’s doing that he doesn’t even seem to be in on the joke. He is serious about his comedy, and that makes us laugh even harder when he does something funny, because he seems so absolutely unaware that it even is funny.
It is this level of commitment that helps “Anchorman” work so well. It’s a slight piffle of a movie that really doesn’t have much in the way of plot. But what it lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in sheer volume of laughs. It’s basically the story of a dunderheaded ladies man and male chauvinist who rules the airwaves of San Diego as a local anchorman. Farrell’s Ron Burgundy is lord of the manor until a foxy new female journalist arrives with an eye toward becoming anchorwoman in a time when there are no anchorwomen. This, of course, creates a problem. You’d think that the joke of male chauvinism would have beaten like a dead horse by now, and you’d mostly be right, but there is still a surprising amount of life in this premise, mostly because it’s hard to believe that there were ever men so beef headed considering the era of female empowerment in which we now live. Much of the jokes arise from this notion, but I think the film works best when it abandons all notion of topicality at all and just reaches for good, old-fashioned silliness. The sillier this movie gets, the more sublimely it seems to work. The off kilter and surreal moments of the film (an all-out rumble between the city’s anchors, an encounter with a surly biker, a dog that speaks Spanish, and the character of Brick Tamlyn) are the ones that really resonate. The rest are cute and cause a few chuckles, but are never quite as inspiring.
As I said before, the reason the film works is because of the commitment of the cast. Will Farrell is damn near perfect as Ron Burgundy, as I already mentioned, but I was surprised by the steady work of Christina Applegate as his foil, Veronica Corningstone. She proves nearly as adept as Farrell of handling a potentially outrageous character with just the right balance. I also loved Steve Carell as the aptly named Brick Tamlyn. Brick is the meteorologist at Channel 2 (the station where Burgundy works) and he’s got an IQ so low that he is technically retarded. Virtually everything coming out of Brick’s mouth is simply hilarious, it’s delivered with a perfect, childlike pitch and seems to come from a dimension totally unlike our own. (One of my favorite of his strange remarks was “I ate a big, red candle.”) Paul Rudd and Vince Vaughn are also great in their smaller roles.
However, the film’s inconsequential nature is its biggest stumbling block. It’s cute, and it’s often fall-down funny, with big laughs and unexpected cameos, but once it’s over, you’re really not too sure why you bothered with it. Sure, “Anchorman” has a general tone of inspired wackiness and sublime silliness. I’m just not sure that it has much relevance or repeat value. It’s fun enough, but I’m not sure it will have the staying power of a movie like “Used Cars”, for example. It all seems a little too light and bright and breezy; even in comparison to this year’s own “Eurotrip” (a film I keep returning to and am always amazed to find still has the power to keep me thoroughly delighted).
Then again, it does have a joke about a men’s cologne named “Sex Panther”, so you never know.
