The Lighter Side Of Sexual Harassment

Rating: 8/10 (21 March 2005)

"Anchorman" is stupid, sexist and sleazy. And it has a lot of other great things going for it, too. Will Ferrell is a comedy genius, but he has never had the chance to realize his true potential on screen before this, a deftly-realized no-holds-barred laughfest that may well be the best thing in cinematic silliness since "Airplane."
Ferrell plays Ron Burgundy, anchorman for a San Diego local news program circa the 1970s, who finds his position and his masculinity challenged when newswoman Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) breaks the glass ceiling to become his co-anchor. As sportscaster and Burgundy buddy Champ Kind (David Koechner) complains, "It's anchorMAN, not anchorLADY, and that's a scientific fact!"
Koechner and Applegate are both terrific, part of a stellar supporting cast that includes Fred Willard as the station manager, Paul Rudd as a roving reporter whose idea of wooing females involves a pungent black-market cologne called "Sex Panther," and Steve Carell as a brain-dead weatherman who hangs with the boys without understanding much of anything. He even has to be coached by Corningstone when he tries to make a lewd come-on. "Would you like to come to the pants party?" "Are you trying to tell me there's a party in your pants, and I'm invited?"
There's many ruder moments, like Ron's hair-trigger reaction to Veronica's acceptance of his date, which some of us will laugh at more than others. But it's hard to imagine people getting genuinely upset with a film as goofy as this. Nothing happens quite as one expects in a script written by Ferrell and director Adam McKay. Like when Burgundy takes Corningstone to a bar and impresses her by playing jazz flute. Or when, during an intimate moment together, Ron and Veronica are joined by a cartoon panda (bears and pandas are a recurring motif in "Anchorman," for some reason.)
The best thing about this movie is Ferrell, who plays Burgundy like a polyester, Scotch-soaked combination of James Lipton and Robert Goulet, clearly channeling the late Ted Knight in his Ted Baxter role. He's a man in love with himself, embarrassingly unaware, yet somehow endearing. When he makes love to a woman, he declares: "I'm storming your castle on my steed, m'lady." When he falls out with later on, he asks her to go back to her home on Whore Island. That and throws her into a typewriter when she insults his hair.
There's a couple of sequences that don't work, though other people like them. One is when Burgundy and his buddies break into song, specifically "Afternoon Delight," which slows things down and doesn't really add to the '70s ambiance which is otherwise kept subtle and on-target (like with an opening pool party that cleverly quotes from "Boogie Nights" without calling attention to itself.)
The other is a big brawl featuring several rival news teams, which swiftly escalates into something out of "Gladiator." This is a sequence a lot of other people like about this movie, but again for me it goes on too long and is too strained. At least it gets out of the way the obligatory Ferrell-film cameos from Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller.
Overall, though, "Anchorman" is a comedy that 100 percent of the time works 90 percent of the time. There's a lot of great lines in this film people will throw at each other around the water coolers, but it also holds together from beginning to end, a rare achievement for films like this. Every time I watch it, there's something else I like best. Right now, what's coolest about this movie may be the fact we get to hear real TV newsman Bill Kurtis tell us: "Ron Burgundy was the balls." That goes double, or quadruple, for "Anchorman."