Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate and Paul Rudd
Director: Adam McKay
Rated: M15+
SENSES of humour are notoriously different. One culture’s hilarity is another culture’s stone-faced incomprehension.
This could be the fate of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
I offer this as an excuse and a defence for saying that I found it very funny – all the way through.
In fact, I had to wipe my eyes so that I could read the sub-titles for the conversation between the dog and the Kodiak Bears during the climax!
Ron Burgundy was invented by Will Ferrell (who proved that a human elf over six feet tall could be engaging in Elf).
He enlisted the talents of writer-director Adam McKay and developed this parody of a San Diego TV news anchorman of the 1970s, when anchormen were celebrities and the women did not have a chance.
The film is a succession of funny sketches as we see a really not very bright Ron basking in his reputation, then dismayed when the networks employ a woman who goes on to success.
Christina Applegate enjoys herself as Ron’s rival.
There are some very enjoyable turns by the supporting cast, especially from Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell (the TV announcer who fell victim to Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty) and Fred Willard (the announcer in Best in Show).
Audiences will want to be on the lookout for cameos from Vince Vaughan, Luke Wilson, Tim Robbins and Ben Stiller as rival anchormen.
The comedy tends to avoid the bodily function jokes that seem to be requisite for American satires.
Rather, it is the situations, the verbal humour, sight gags and general genial spoof of the pretensions and macho assumptions of those days that are funny.
