Talladega Nights – The Legend Of Ricky Bobby starts as it means to go on – with a quote dubiously attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt – “America is all about speed. Hot, nasty badass speed.”
This film has everything. It has men looking stupid in underpants, scathing satire and a long-overdue target in NASCAR racing. It has Will Ferrell, who stars as the eponymous driver who wakes up in the morning and “pisses excellence”. He thanks the Baby Jesus everyday for his foxy trophy wife, his even dumber best friend (Reilly), his two children Walker and Texas Ranger. But he always makes time to mention Powerade in his prayers in accordance with his sponsorship agreement.
Unhappily for him, a homosexual French Formula ‘Un’ champion hilariously essayed by Sacha Baron Cohen is gunning for Ricky’s crown. The two men could not be more different. ‘Mr. Fancy Pants Foreigner’ listens to jazz (“Sounds like somebody made a tape of something dying or something,” observes one of Ricky’s crew) and dreams of retiring to Stockholm with his husband to design currency for dogs and cats.
This delirious equal opportunities bashing displays the same subtlety that characterised Team America World Police, and anyone who claims that US residents have no sense of irony really needs to check this movie out and perhaps catch an episode of The Simpsons once in a while. In their brilliantly double-coded battle, Ricky points out that America gave the world Chinese food and pizza. His rival reads L’Etranger while driving and explains that France gave the world democracy, existentialism and the menage a trois.
And then, just when you think the movie can’t get any better, Pat Benatar strikes up on the soundtrack. Hell yeah, as any of the characters might say.