The film follows protagonist Ron Burgundy (Ferrell), an anchorman for the local news channel and his news crew of ladies man Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), alpha male sports jock Champ Kind (David Koechner) and potentially mentally ill weatherman Brick Tamlin (Steve Carell). Set in San Diego in the 1970s, the plot sees Ron unsuccessfully deal with the spread of feminism, highlighted neatly by the hiring of co-anchor Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). A series of incidents involving the two lead to Ron’s career being put in jeopardy as the world moves past his unique style of macho reporting.
Anchorman is a funny film. Not just a funny film in fact, but a hilarious, non-stop joke-telling, wise-cracking movie quote fiesta. Almost every line of the mostly ad-libbed dialogue is quotable in various situations and fans of the film will happily trade quotes for hours on end. Whether it’s something simple like when in Rome, or Brian’s aftershave, Sex Panther (60% of the time it works, every time.) all the way to the downright bizarre I believe translated it means a whale’s vagina. Each minute is crammed with so many fantastic lines of dialogue that it’ll take multiple viewings to catch them all.
The casting is absolutely perfect too, with Rudd, Carell, Applegate and Koerchner all pulling their weight in the comedy stakes. Not to mention the sheer number of brilliant cameos from people like Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins and Jack Black. Everyone seems to be firing on all cyclinders for the whole film and despite the odd flight of fantasy that distracts from the overall story, everything is played for the most laughs possible.
Not since Airplane! have a cast so whole-heartedly thrown themselves into a comedy film and garnered such outrageous results. It’s almost impossible not to love the movie, everything from the 1970s outfits to the endlessly hilarious scenes such as the news-team parking lot brawl. Everything that shouldn’t work does, and everything else is comedy gold.
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