More belly laughs than a psychotropic clowns convention

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2006)

I am not quite sure what I expected when I sat down to watch this movie. I have seen other Will Ferrell movies and found them mildly humorous, but not hilarious. The Ad campaign was not all that impressive, but anything that lampoons NASCAR, which is really a self-parody of itself, had to be on my list.
First, no matter what anybody tells you, Talladega Nights IS the belly laugh of the year. Better than Wedding Crashers and any Ben Stiller movie since "...Mary". I'm not sure why this movie is not a 10 of 10 at IMDb. What do people want from movies? You go to a comedy to laugh. You go to a sad movie to cry, to a "horror" movie to be scared. If you don't laugh, cry or scream, then it's not funny, sad or scary, and you've wasted your time and money.
Must have been uptight NASCAR fans and drunken right wingers. Hmmm. Are those adjectives modifying the right nouns? Generally I think people go, see, enjoy or not, and leave it at the theater. Maybe get a few lines for the water cooler the next day. This is not church. Movies are not psychotherapy.
Wait. On second thought maybe it is. What can be better for the tortured self than to have a non-stop belly laugh for 90+ minutes? You laugh so hard or at least my wife and I did, that it is hard to remember individual lines or scenes that doubled you over. There are so many funny lines, sight gags, and twisted punch lines that it will never be said of Talladega Nights, "It went from the sublime to the ridiculous". Talladega Nights stayed in the ridiculous. There is no takeaway here. That is not a bad thing. Certainly not for Ferrell and the production company. I could go back and watch it again and buy the DVD also.
Speaking of takeaway, this movie reminds me of Chinese food. As the old saying goes: You eat until you are stuffed, but an hour later you are hungry again. That's what Talladega Nights is...the Chinese food of comedies. As many laughs as you can handle, but nothing left an hour later except a warm glow and a happy smile.
What's wrong with that?