Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy **** (2004, Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd) – Classic Movie Review 486

Will Ferrell stars as Ron Burgundy, San Diego’s number one super-smug Seventies TV news anchorman, who is dumped after he meets his match in dastardly female force of nature, ambitious would-be anchorwoman Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). She forces her way into being his TV co-presenter at a time when women just didn’t read the news.

This appealing 2004 true-life based comedy starts jauntily, the star duo are classy comics and there are rib-tickling, sometimes side-splitting moments throughout. There are also expert comic turns by Paul Rudd (as reporter Brian Fantana), Steve Carell (as the dim weatherman Brick Tamland) and David Koechner (the sportscaster Champ Kind) as his team, and especially by Fred Willard as Ed Harken, the station manager.

When it flags slightly around half way, this expertly silly comedy is helped out by amusing guest cameos from Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins and Luke Wilson as news anchorman from opposing TV news stations, plus Jack Black as a vengeful biker. Seth Rogen plays Eager Cameraman.

Though it’s perhaps never quite as hilarious as it thinks it is, Anchorman is warm-hearted, appealing and definitely very funny. The clever Ferrell holds it together seemingly effortlessly. His screenplay with the director Adam McKay is way above average for this kind of comedy, sometimes even quite inspired. The true-life base for the comedy grounds the film and gives it an interesting subtext that stops the film just being daft a la Austin Powers. Applegate is excellent, proving herself a worthy opponent for Ferrell.

There’s one F-word: the word that Corningstone writes on Burgundy’s autocue and gets him fired for when he reads it on air.

Anchorman originally runs at a taut, crisp 95 minutes but the long extended version runs at 105 minutes. The director had so much extra footage they were able to make a second version out of it after the original took $80million at the US box office. 2013 brought a belated sequel: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. That one’s two hours long!

http://derekwinnert.com/anchorman-2-the-legend-continues-film-review/

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 486

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