Will Ferrell's 2004 film Anchorman was a cultural phenomenon, a movie that spawned a thousand catchphrases and a rabid following for the former Saturday Night Live star's egocentric, misogynistic character, news personality Ron Burgundy. Since then, Ferrell has become a mainstream star in more conventional comedies and the occasional dramatic role, but Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby finds him reuniting with Anchorman director and cowriter Adam McKay, and thus comes loaded with expectations from his dedicated fans.
Unlike a lot of the work that Ferrell hires himself out for, Anchorman was weird, daring and consistently hilarious, so the bar is set high for Talladega Nights. Unfortunately, Ferrell and McKay seem content to simply repeat Anchorman's winning formula with diminished results. Once again, Ferrell plays an arrogant, macho buffoon—in this case superstar NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby—and once again his character is brought down by the incursion of a perception-challenging other—in this case a gay, French driving sensation played by Sacha Baron Cohen—into his hermetically sealed chauvinistic paradise.
And once again the flimsy plot is mostly an excuse for Ferrell and his costars to unleash a barrage of bizarre, often nonsensical jokes, with scenes cut together from dozens of improvisational takes. The hit-to-miss ratio here is not nearly as good as in Anchorman, and part of the problem is that too much of the film relies on Ferrell, with supporting players like Andy Richter and David Koechner (who was great in Anchorman) languishing in the background. John C. Reilly shines as Ricky's teammate and put-upon best friend, and Gary Cole has some choice moments as Ricky's deadbeat dad, but Cohen is too mannered and obtuse and drags down the film whenever he's onscreen.
Although the parade of left-field jokes can get old, there's still plenty to laugh at here, and the film is hampered at least as much by its overemphasis on plot and insistence on a character arc for Ricky that comes off as contrived and disingenuous, like something Adam Sandler might cook up. Ferrell seems to be at a crossroads in his career, and while Talladega Nights is a perfectly entertaining collection of jokes, where he goes next will determine whether he'll keep repeating himself or manage to carve out a more varied body of work.