Movie Review: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Paperback Writer here.

Loki and I went to see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby on Friday night. It was a fun movie, the kind of movie that you don't have to put a lot of brain cells into, which was the type of movie that we wanted to see that night anyway.

However, I will say if you saw 40 Year Old Virgin or Anchorman they were clearly the better movies. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, not the kind of movie though, that I'd see again.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly (who plays his best friend) were funny. I should say that everyone in the movie was funny, particularly Sasha Baron Cohen (that's Ali G to most people) who plays Jean Girard, a French Formula One driver who has come to America to beat Ricky Bobby. Adam McKay, the director, loves to use the same actors in his movies so expect to see a few familiar faces as the supporting characters. I'm surprised Loki didn't smack me for pointing out all the characters that were in Anchorman and the 40 Year Old Virgin.

Ricky Bobby is NASCAR's top racer but during one race he suffers a horrible accident at the hands of Jean Girard and all things go downhill from there. It is his redemption and how he learns to control his fear and drive fast again. His comeback race is at (wait for it) the Talladega Racetrack.

Anyway, I'm not going to go into too much detail about this movie - that would be too telling. Would I recommend it as a full price movie? No. But I would recommend it as a matinee movie or a cheap movie date. So, I'll give it three stars out of five.