Stay Classy, San Diego

I will admit, I’m not a huge fan of Will Ferrell. The comedian has his following, with plenty of people enjoying his films and characters. For a while there the actor had hit after hit at the Box Office, making a number of small- to medium-budget comedies that generally did quite well at the Box Office. I certainly don’t want to yuck someone else’s yum since I understand my tastes aren’t everyone else’s tastes, it’s just that the kinds of Ferrell plays – overgrown man-babies that tend to yell all their lines – aren’t the kinds of characters I enjoy.

I understand how he settled into this performance style with these kinds of characters, mind you. Ferrell came up on Saturday Night Live, and the job of a performer on that show is to develop one or two reliable characters backed by a performance style that works for the audience, all so they will cheer when you show up on screen. They want reliable, expected, and safe performances on that show so that the comedians can go, season after season, giving the same kinds of skits that people can enjoy late at night when they shut their brains off. Ferrell found a few characters he could make that suited this need, and his man-baby that yelled were audience favorites, so it’s exactly the kind of characters he continued making.

Ferrell’s career since leaving Saturday Night Live, though, has remained dominated by these kinds of characters. Old School, Elf, Kicking & Screaming, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro… on and on we get the same kinds of characters doing the same schtick over and over. Sometimes it does work, such as in the case with Elf where there’s an undercurrent of sugary-sweetness that at least makes Ferrell’s performance bearable. And occasionally (very rarely) he’ll play against type and make a movie where he’s not an overgrown man-baby screaming at everything, such as in Stranger than Fiction, which is one of my favorite movies from the actor. Still, he has a specific style, and by and large I do not like that style.

It’s a large part of why I avoided watching Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, for so long. While I know plenty of people love this film, with some outlets even ranking it among the funniest movies ever made, appreciating Ferrell’s character was going to be an uphill battle for me. I resisted watching it even though the various films in this series ended up in my collection. But since I needed a break from the various American Pie films, and I wanted something a little less raunchy, it felt like a good time to finally give this film a chance. And I have to admit it is a very funny movie… it’s just that the film is at its best when it’s not focusing on Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy at all.

It’s 1975 and Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is the number one news anchor in San Diego. He and his news team on KVWN Channel 4 – lead field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner), and meteorologist Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) – bring in the best ratings of any channel in the area, and Burgundy is the trusted voice of the news for all of the city. He’s riding high, on top of the world, when it comes to his career, but after years and years of partying and doing the same thing over and over, Burgundy has started to feel a little empty, even a little lonely.

Enter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), a TV journalist hired by the station to bring diversity to their on-air crew. Veronica has aspirations of being a news anchor, the first female anchor ever, but she also knows that to do that, and be taken seriously, she can’t let herself fall into any relationships with her co-workers. Each of the guys make a pass at her, one by one, but it’s only Burgundy that’s able to sweep her off her feet. However, when Burgundy gets delayed in arriving at the station one day, Veronica steps up and does the news on her own. Burgundy feels like this is a betrayal, and very quickly the two hit the skids. Now the city waits and wonders if these two can make it work as co-anchors or if this rift will end up taking a toll on Burgundy’s life in ways he could have never imagined…

From a construction standpoint, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is an interesting film. It rides a thin line between being a straight-up parody and just trying to be a more normal film. Burgundy is an over-the-top character and he certainly feels like a parody of every 1970s anchor that ever existed. His buddies ride that line a little tighter, with Fantana and Kind feeling silly but also acting like they could have actually been news guys at some point in the past. And then Veronica actually feels like she has a real story, coming from a more serious film and she got transplanted into this movie. I wouldn’t this makes the film tonally wild, and it all links in and works together, but it does allow the film to swing around and pursue whatever jokes or bits it wants.

There are two modes that the film leans into where it actually finds its best humor. Any time Burgundy is behind his desk, with Ferrell doing his best anchorman impression, his performance sings. Many of his best jokes come when he’s behind that desk, and it creates some very meme-ready moments. And then, when the film goes fully outlandish, it also finds great humor. There are sequences, such as a brawl between all the various news teams in the city, that feels so out there, so over-the-top, it becomes a kind of ZAZ-type spoof (see: Airplane!), and it’s absolutely uproarious.

The trouble for me is that, outside of these moments and sequences, Ron himself isn’t that amusing. Farrell is frequently in full yelling, man-baby mode, giving a performance that lacks nuance of introspection. Burgundy is a blowhard of the highest order, and while that can be funny when a film pokes holes in that personality, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy never does that. It lets him ride as a blowhard from start to finish without ever really having him look inwardly to see what he needs to change or why someone might not like him. It leads to a character that comes out fully formed, who never has to adapt for the story around him.

The one place where you would think the film could force some introspection on him would be with his love story opposite Veronica. Credit to Applegate as she sells her romance with Ferrell’s Burgundy for all its worth, and her performance is hilarious. But Burgundy doesn’t really grow or change, even when he’s forced out of the channel late in the film and, in any other film, would be required to rebuild himself to be a better man. He does toss off a single line that Veronica is “better than me”, but it doesn’t have the kind of narrative development or character work to back up that moment. Burgundy remains Burgundy through and through and, in the end, isn’t ever punished for it or forced to really confront himself. That leaves him a one-note character with a one-note joke.

Not that I think this ruins the movie. It really is very funny in multiple different ways. It has many scenes that are absolute comedy gold, with great performances from basically everyone around Ferrell’s Burgundy. And, as I said, there are moments where I even liked his character, it was just inconsistent, with his character being more grating than entertaining a lot of the time. Again, I understand others like this performance style and find it funny, it just doesn’t work for me. I think that holds Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy back for me because what is a very funny film outside of the lead character could be the absolute funniest film I’ve seen if I actually liked the central character. But I don’t, and it’s all down to Will Ferrell.