I have an automatic prejudice against any movie starring an ex-member of SNL because let’s face it, 90% of them suck and even the ones that were allegedly good, I still found to be unfunny and annoying. But I think we’ve been going through a Renaissance of decent, low-brow comedies worthy of renting; Dodgeball and Team America readily come to mind.
Will Ferrel and his supporting actors do excel in a low-brow send up of local news in the 1970s, allegedly the last decade of public decadance in America. Decadance? People smoking in the work place, drinking hard liquor with lunch without being branded a boozehound and mucho casual sex before AIDS and herpes spoiled the party. The jokes and plot work out better than the similar time-capsule comedy The Wedding Singer because the story is really more centered on the time period. Sandler and Barrymore’s unconvincing chemistry could be set in any time period, 1985 is just stage dressing. In Anchorman, the 70s are essential to the jokes and story. How? Mainly through the core plot, news teams and news rooms were mainly a boys only club, now some uppity woman has the nerve to think she can be a TV reporter or even try for the anchor position! Try setting that premise in a later time period and no one will buy into it.
So is it funny? Usually. Not fall down, roll on the floor funny. More of an amusing humor with numerous catch phrases for the office clowns to mimic later. Especially the lines from Steve Carell’s retarded weatherman. Most of the humor centers around Ferrell and the exaggerations and absurdities he specializes in (my favorite is the flute solo at a jazz club). There are a string of cameos which brought a chuckle too, you’ll have to see it to recognize them (an ongoing trend in comedies for the last few years that I’ve actually enjoyed). I was also glad to see Christina Applegate having a major role in this movie. After a decade of being typecast on Fox, she will always have an uphill battle to be cast as anything other than a slut. Here she gives an effective comedic performance, usually as the foil or straightman, I mean straightperson, as the female reporter who turned the world upside down on the newsmen.
My hatred of ex-SNLer’s movies still stands but I grant this one a favorable rating because Ferrell made a genuinely clever movie, not a 10-minute sketch stretched into a 90-minute flick.