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Total Film: The Modern Guide to The Movies

Reviews

Jan 31st 2005 By Total Film

Will Ferrell further proves his commercial worth with this often hysterical parody of '70s TV newsmen. While the backdrop has some basis in fact (though, admittedly, not much), the Burt Reynolds/Smokey And The Bandit blooper in the end credits points to a major inspiration for Ferrell's big-haired, mustachioed anchorman and his equally inane news team, who find their manhood threatened by the arrival of female reporter Christina Applegate.

With its scattergun approach to humour, it's more like an extended TV skit than anything else. Ferrell and his co-writer Adam McKay, who also directs, chuck in enough lowbrow lunacy, middling smut, occasional weirdness and comic cameos (the usual suspects - Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Vince Vaughn) to cover most bases. Not all of it works, but when it does, it's bladder-troublingly funny.