Ferrell totally gets the anchorman of the 70s vibe and pulls off even the lamest lines without breaking a sweat, taking no prisoners and pulling his comedic cohorts into the groove with him. As the legend-in-his-own-mind Ron Burgundy, Ferrell delivers the goods with ample assistance from the dim-witted weatherman Brick Tamland (played by Steve Carell who does his best to steal the movie and pretty much succeeds), lady killer and offensive fragrance-wearer, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), and sportscaster/emotional wreck/sexually confused Champ Kind (David Koechner).
As a San Diego native, my appreciation for the humor in “Anchorman” might have been slightly skewed in the favorable direction. It’s like listening to a song and hearing a shout out to your hometown. Even if the song stinks, you listen just to hear your city’s name. Maybe it’s unfair for me to even review “Anchorman.” We don’t have that many movies set in San Diego (or as we refer to it: “America’s Finest City”) and it’s really tough to be impartial when the audience practically did the wave cheering for the film before the lights even went out in the theater. Luckily the humor in “Anchorman” is universal so I’m fairly safe in believing it’ll play out funny in just about any city in the world.
If you’re at all familiar with this sleepy Southern California town, you’d know it is totally possible the big story of the summer would concern the birth of a panda (actually that’s just as probable now as it was back in the 70s). And it’s also just as likely a water-skiing squirrel would make it on the news as a prominently featured segment. So the humor in “Anchorman” hit home. The other San Diegoians/San Diegoneze/San Diegiens/whatever at the screening also seemed to appreciate the San Diego references, applauding loudly any time a local landmark or culture reference hit the screen. This, of course, made it very difficult to hear the lines in the movie. But no matter, it’s not like you had to closely follow the storyline to get the movie. No, this movie had one theme: women in the 70s were considered second-class citizens, pretty to look at, objects of sexual fantasies, but definitely not the equal of any man.
At the center of the movie’s male/female war is Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), a woman who dares to go where no woman has gone before. Corningstone lands a spot as Ron Burgundy’s co-anchor and pretty much all hell breaks loose. That’s the plot. The rest is gravy or icing on the cake or whatever food reference you’d like to insert. Most of the movie is taken up with the four bachelor news guy buddies yelling random things, engaging in slapstick comedy, or trying to outdo one another in picking up women.
Even with the movie bouncing back and forth, randomly stopping to showcase a street brawl between rival network anchors here, inserting a man bonding a little too intimately with his dog there, following Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy around the stage as he plays the flute to charm Christina Applegate, and so forth, the jokes still work 9 times out of 10. More importantly for me was the fact I never cringed at Ferrell and Co.’s humor. The only scene that made me think, “No, you’ve gone too far, reel it back in before it gets away from you” involved a punted dog and a very, very tall bridge. But dog lover/animal freak that I am, I still couldn’t stop cracking up (obviously a warped sense of humor is necessary to get the most out of “Anchorman”).
It’s no secret a few big-name celebrities show up in cameo roles. What the filmmakers have been keeping a secret is just how much of a romantic movie “Anchorman” turned out to be. I can see the flags going up but don’t be alarmed, it’s not a ‘date movie’ by any stretch of the imagination. But it actually has a love story – albeit one played for all the laughs you can wring out of an improbable workplace romance - at the heart of the movie.
While some of the jokes are hokey and some of the bits go on a few beats too long, “Anchorman” works because of Will Ferrell. He outdoes his work as Frank the Tank in “Old School” and even bests his performance as an overgrown elf. With Rudd, Koechner, Applegate, Carell, and other assorted supporting players, Ferrell makes “Anchorman” a goofball comedy perfect for summertime audiences.
GRADE: B
"Anchorman" was directed by Adam McKay and is rated PG-13 for sexual humor, language and comic violence.
