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Will Farrell followed up his star-making vehicle
Elf, which matched his fine-tuned comic obliviousness to a sweet sincerity, with a more arrogant variation on the same character: Ron Burgundy, a macho, narcissistic news anchor from the 1970s. Along with his news posse--roving reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd,
Clueless), sports guy Champ Kind (David Koechner), and dim-bulb weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell,
Bruce Almighty)--Burgundy rules the roost in San Diego, fawned upon by groupies and supported by a weary producer (Fred Willard,
Best In Show) who tolerates Burgundy's ego because of good ratings. But when Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate,
View from the Top) arrives with ambitions to become an anchor herself, she threatens the male-dominated newsroom.
Anchorman has plenty of funny material, but it's as if Farrell couldn't decide what he really wanted to mock, and so took smart-ass cracks at everything in sight. Still, there are moments of inspired delirium.
--Bret Fetzer
From The New Yorker
Will Ferrell as a seventies-era schmuck-a local-news anchorman with a mustache thick enough to scale a fish. There are a few laughs, and one beautiful prolonged gag at the end involving rival local-news teams. But Ferrell and his old "Saturday Night Live" buddy Adam McKay (who directed) don't seem to have the shape of a movie-any movie-in their bones or even in their hopes. In a typical scene, someone shouts and does something strange, then McKay cuts to someone else shouting and doing something strange, then back to the first guy, then the scene is over. Ferrell does the regular-guy bellow, the nod-and-wink chumminess, the manly stare, the blank-brained self-confidence, but even a schmuck has to have a soul if he's going to be the center of a two-hour movie. Ferrell is a buffoon, but he's not an actor-at least not yet. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker