Anchorman

I Pooped a Hammer!

2 1/2 babes

This film is struggling with itself as to what it wants to be, much like Bob and David's Run Ronnie Run. On the one hand there is a satirical look at 70's newscrews as they are first invaded by women, coupled with a generic love story, on the other there is a loosely connected series of skits of over the top zany comedy.

As a result of this conflict of visions, the movie comes off as less than either. Not quite a success on either front, though still providing quite a few laughs.

In E!'s making of special Ferrell and the cast re-counted how they would do one take on the script, and then after that everything was improv. A series of outtakes Jackie Chan style during the credits show many of these alternate lines and takes, including what was the funniest of anything in the film, Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), the Weatherman with a sub 50 IQ, saying "I Pooped a Hammer." I think that this approach to the filmmaking was the source of the problem.

If they were going to do the film this way, they should have just come in with a rough outline of the film and went balls out with the improv, Christopher Guest style. As it stands the film feels like it just veers off-course constantly, such as the lengthy gang-fight scene (Which is funny, but would have been better if the entire film had been so outlandish).

I laughed quite a bit during the film at the outlandish elements, but not so much at the love story and satire bits, and on the whole the crowd I saw the film with didn't laugh much at all.

For me, this is a film about Will Ferrell mugging for the camera, when the better film would have been one concentrating not on a contrived love story, but rather on the interplay of the news team themselves with a heavier investment in each. Carell's Tamland stole every scene he was in and it would have benefited the film to concentrate more on him and less on Ferrell.

Something more along the lines of Animal House, an ensemble comedy, rather than a character driven sketch film where only one of the characters is truly important and the rest are props.

There are a few notable cameos, including Jack Black as a biker, who provides another of the films funniest moments ("This is how I roll").

The E! Special also showed bits of scenes cut from the film, including Ferrell getting shot, a lengthy musical montage, and the news team constantly littering. All of those would have strengthened the movie.

If the future DVD release includes more of that material, it might be worth checking out, but if not, wait for this one to show up in the bargain bins.