A silly but funny collection of sketches featuring the character of Burgundy (with a vague narrative in there somewhere)  some miss but most hit

Rating: Null/10 (26 September 2004)

Before the years of cable, the local news station was the main place people got their news and, because of that, the news anchorman was king. In San Diego, the number one anchorman was Ron Burgundy. Every inch the 70's man, Ron is on the top of his game, partying and getting the ladies with his all-male news team. However things are changing and a woman is brought in to bring diversity to the channel 4 team. Unable to bed her and move on, Ron becomes fascinated with Veronica to the point where he begins to love her. However when Veronica makes it clear that her ambition is to one day be an anchor. Will their competition get in the way of Ron's first ever feeling of love?
After enjoying the silly humour of Dodgeball, I decided (along with an audience of 8 others) to give Anchorman a go. Immediately the film sets out its stall with a serious, very seventies narration that puts us right in the world of the Anchorman. After a few scenes out 'plot' is presented to us in the form of Ron initial rebuttal by Veronica; from this point on the film follows the vague flow of their competition and their romance  however to call it a plot is to be rather too kind to it. Instead the film is best viewed as a collection of sketches featuring one character, all strung together with one vague theme. This is because the funniest bits of the film are often the bits that are very imaginative and off the wall where often it is the actual story that creates the misses and the periods where I wasn't laughing a great deal.
Of course, many people will know before they see it if they will like it or not, because the cast have done so many films recently it is easy to get a handle on their sense of humour. For my money I like it and I enjoyed the film even if I did feel that it didn't have much of a story and had quite a few segments that just didn't work as well as the majority. The imaginatively silly script is great fun and gave me plenty of good laughs whether in the form of silly entire sequences (the anchor rumble) or just the silly characters all around the place. Of these, some are poorly judged and are silly without being funny (Champ) but mostly they get the mix just right (Brick is spot on). The manic humour mostly hits though  and even spills over into the end credits where a 'Smokey & The Bandit 2' moment had me laughing due to its sheer unexpected nature.
The cast is deep and are a major part of the film winning  everyone is pretty much 'on' and covers the fact that the central narrative is nowhere near good enough on its own. Ferrell is as funny as ever, but his character is an one-note deal and, even if he plays it well (which he does) it isn't enough to fill a film. So thank goodness then for a support cast that features inspired lunacy in both the cameos and the main cast. Koechner is a bit boring, while Rudd is simple but still fun in some ways but it is Carell who pretty much gets the biggest laugh every time he does anything. Applegate plays it pretty straight but also gets some laughs  she is always eclipsed by those around her but she did good work anyway. The cameos come thick and fast and, although they could have been distracting but actually they all work pretty well. As ever Vaughn, Stiller and Wilson all show up and are good but the cameos also include good turns from Black, Robbins, Pyle, Trejo and a funny dog.
The film contains scenes of rather surprising animal cruelty and also violence to women but, while this may rightly be a major issue for some viewers I was laughing at the time and chose to take it all in the spirit it was intended. Overall the film is very funny in a very manic way but some will not like the misses that mostly come from a poorly developed story. When it is funny it will take you by surprise and make you laugh hard but when it misses it does so in a very obvious manner. Mostly though this is a very funny film  but come prepared for a story so bitty that this could have been called 'Anchorman: The Best of Ron Burgundy'.