Ferrell finally finishes strong

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2006)

My wife is a huge Will Ferrell fan. She loves anything he does. I have been a lot more critical of his work. His past movies have felt like he started with some good plot lines and some awesomely memorable scenes but the films all get to points where the jokes and gags get weird and the script dries up in long stretches. The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is the one film in which Ferrell finally gets to string along some consistently funny scenes and keep you involved until the end of the movie. The casting was great! He risked getting upstaged by several characters (a role he's played in a couple other movies) but Ferrell maintains on-screen supremacy. John C. Reilly has good chemistry with Ferrell and I would not be surprised to see them pair up in future projects. The story is far fetched and unbelievable but it is massively entertaining whether you're a NASCAR fan or not. I've seen it twice and would not rule out another spin or two before it leaves the theaters.