Posted on: Friday, July 9, 2004

MOVIE SCENE
'Anchorman' broadcasting broad humor

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

The addition of Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) to the TV station news team upsets anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell, right) and his fellow newsmen — from left, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Champ Kind (David Koechner) and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) — in a comedy set in 1970s San Diego. DreamWorks Pictures

In the not-to-distant past, television news was an all-male bastion. A woman might surface occasionally, giving a weather report or introducing a news-filler puff piece. But serious news? That was a guy thing, especially at the anchor desk.

A high-profile example of male chauvinism at its most blatant, broadcast news of the '70s is a perfect target for satire. And red-hot actor-writer Will Ferrell lets 'em have it with both barrels.

"Anchorman" is an often-hilarious silly sendup of the business and the era — and gives the comic star of "Elf" and "Old School" his funniest movie character yet.

Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is a superstar in his San Diego market, the anchor on the top-rated newscast with every hair in place, an oversized ego, a flair for the ladies, and an unparalleled ability to read news from a teleprompter. He's surrounded by a team that's nearly as funny as he is — field reporter Brian Fontana (Paul Rudd), a junior grade Romeo content with Ron's castoffs; sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner) with a cowboy mentality; and awesomely dimwitted weatherman Brick Tamland. He's played by Steve Carell, who is quickly developing a reputation for hilarious broadcasting sendups. (He's the announcer whose mouth turns to mush in the presence of "Bruce Almighty.")

For the four co-workers, life is a holiday; easy-to-perform broadcasts followed by raucous all-night parties with groupies and hangers-on, in a city of adoring viewers. Only we know that Burgundy is a sad, lonely guy. When the party's over, he heads back to his luxurious home that he shares only with his scruffy little dog, with whom he holds extensive, very funny conversations.

Burgundy's life and career go topsy-turvy when Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) arrives at the station. She's hired to provide diversity, prompting some guys in the newsroom to ask, "What the heck's diversity?" For the men of the newsroom, Veronica is an object to be bedded. But they're much too crude and silly to appeal to Veronica, though Burgundy eventually and surprisingly succeeds.

However, when a highway accident delays Burgundy en route to work one night, the ever-eager Veronica grabs the anchor chair — and becomes a star herself. Thus the stage is set for turmoil, since Burgundy is much too insecure to put up with a co-anchor. One amusing catastrophe leads to another, until most of the cast ends up in a cage with wild bears at the famous San Diego Zoo. (To explain how and why would take away the fun.)

Sure, this is often-sophomoric sketch comedy of the "Saturday Night Live" variety, but Ferrell and his director and co-writer Adam McKay link the segments cleverly and keeps the jokes coming with all sorts of unexpected asides and background bits. (For example, whenever the station manager is shown, he's wrapping up a phone call to a school where his kid is in hysterically funny trouble. Of course, it helps that Fred Willard, the always-funny master of officious jerkdom, plays the station manager.)

"Anchorman" is also blessed with a seemingly endless parade of very funny cameos, including Jack Black as a motorcycle rider waylaid by a flying burrito and recent Oscar-winner Tim Robbins as a pipe-smoking Public Broadcasting anchor.

The end result is the funniest movie of the summer, a sublimely silly sendup of a sublimely silly era.

Rated PG-13, profanity and innuendo.