Will Ferrell has a mission, if not an obsession -- to celebrate, and satirize, the pumped-up folly of American manhood -- and he has found a customized vehicle for it in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."
As Ricky, a NASCAR racer with major daddy issues who grows up nursing one thought (''I wanna go fast''), Ferrell uses his steady-silly baby-fat gaze and impervious ego to make gleeful fun of the tacky bravado of ''outlaw'' Southern car culture.
How arrogant a yokel is Ricky? He can't stop preening about his skills (''I wake up ... and I p--- excellence!''), he's so greedy for sponsors that he plasters a Fig Newton decal on his windshield, and he turns the act of saying grace into a competitive sport.
He also won't let his best friend, the boobish rube Cal (John C. Reilly), win a single race.
"Talladega Nights" takes some very funny cheap shots, especially when Ricky faces down his new team member -- a gay, French, Camus-reading-behind-the-wheel Formula One driver played, with a leer worthy of Peter Sellers, by Sacha Baron Cohen.
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