(crotch) in-your-face humour

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2009)

I'm thinking this is my favourite of the four Will Ferrell comedies I've seen - no received nostalgia or Halliburton cameos to disrupt the high-concept laffs. Jon Heder can't really match Ferrell mug for mug, but both serve a burlesque of homosexual panic so broad and overt that I can only imagine how it played in theatres. Ferrell is really walking an impressively sustained tightrope with his embattled masculinity routine, and he keeps finding new angles with each project. Arnett and Poehler are great in support - check out their JFK-Marilyn routine. As usual, this peaks in the second act, when things are going badly; can't beat the ice capades shtick. But it sustains to the end; my roomie looked out in bewilderment at what all this hysterical laughter was about.