“Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” staring Will Ferrell, is one of his most notable comic cohorts to date. Ferrell stars as Ron Burgundy, a pompous, over-the-top, 70’s news anchor from San Diego. His sloppiness, crudeness, and upright ability to pursue the most outrageous tangent makes the audience start to believe that he is, in his own words, “kind of a big deal”.
In his quest for glory as the most prominent new anchor in all of San Diego, Burgundy sets out to belittle his arch nemesis and soon to be fiery love interest, Veronica Corningstone. Burgundy and his crew; Brian, the cocky reporter; Champ, the Sportscaster; and Brick, the slightly “off” weatherman, believe that there is no place for women in the realm of news reporting, so they continuously heckle Ms. Corningstone while at the same time trying their best to pick her up.
Corningstone and Burgundy compete for the position of top dog through a series of pranks, teasing, and spiteful jabs. As Veronica quickly steps up the success ladder, Burgundy can not seem to handle being second rate to a woman.
But later, Burgundy battles his inner strife with his rival and later sweeps Veronica off of her feet with his impressive jazz flute skills.
From this point on the plot begins to go a bit haywire. With guest appearances by Vince Vaughn, Jack Black, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, and Tim Robbins, the lack of an actual story can be easily ignored by the hilarious comic relief. Burgundy’s gang street fights with other rival news stations. The battles get a bit intense when heavy weaponry is brought into game. Burgundy also suffered the loss of his beloved dog Baxter, when the little dog was kicked off of a bridge by a nearby motorcyclist.
Humor is in the eye of the beholder, and Ferrel’s outlandish comedic personality is not entertaining to everybody. But, if you are a fan of the whimsical comic genius of Will Ferrell in his movies “Old School”, “Elf”, or “SNL”, “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” will bring you a gust-busting, side-spitting, gelastic goood time.
