Adam Mckay Page 2

Melissa McCarthy brings another of her improvisational alter-egos to the big screen with this energetic comedy. The first cause for pause comes because this is a reteaming with her filmmaker husband Ben Falcone, with whom she made the bizarrely unfunny Tammy, as opposed to the filmmaker Paul Feig who directed her to box office triumph with Spy and The Heat and an Oscar nomination in Bridesmaids. Yes, there's a significance difference.

This time she plays hugely popular financial guru Michelle Darnell, whose stardom ends abruptly when she is sent to prison for four months for insider trading. When she's released, everyone she stepped on as she rose to the top turns their back on her, and her nemesis/ex Renault (Peter Dinklage) is still determined to get revenge. The only person who will talk to her is former assistant Claire (Kristen Bell), so Michelle moves in with her family. Unable to restart her business, she also takes over the Dandelion Scout troup of Claire's daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson), pushing the girls to take aggressive measures to sell their cookies.

As always, McCarthy throws herself into the role, creating a vivid character who indulges in a lot of outrageously silly slapstick. As with Tammy, the humour centres more on abusive interaction and humiliation than actual wit. McCarthy and Falcone strain to get laughs from physical wackiness rather than anything based on the character, so the movie only ever feels mildly amusing thanks to its high energy. But there's nothing engaging about Michelle, and it's only in a few cute-warm scenes with the terrific Bell that the film springs to anything resembling life. Thankfully, her scenes with the likeable Tyler Labine (as a potential boyfriend) have a loose humour to them. And Dinklage is surprisingly amusing as the sputtering cartoonish villain, while Kathy Bates generates a few sparks as Michelle's sassy mentor.

Continue reading: The Boss Review

Smart and snappy, this comedy is one of the scariest films of the year, using humour to outline the 2008 economic collapse from the inside. With characters who are based on real people, the film shows how economists made a fortune from the financial devastation inflicted on millions of families. And the movie cleverly points out that all of this happened (and people are still getting away with it) because the general public can't be bothered to pay attention.

Things were so booming in the first years of this century that it was easy for the media to divert the attention of Americans away from the dark underbelly of the financial world, creating big scandals out of nothing, spurring rampant buying sprees and making stars of non-entities like the Kardashians. Meanwhile in 2005, investment expert Michael Burry (Christian Bale) noticed that America's mortgage market was turning toxic. So he offered to "short" it, betting against this always-stable market by purchasing credit default swaps. The banks thought they would make a fortune from him, carrying on their dangerous practices. But other experts saw Burry's point, including the nerdy genius Mark Baum (Steve Carell), the shark-like Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) and a pair of newbies (Finn Wittrock and John Magaro) who tip off their reclusive mentor Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt). When the economy imploded, these men became billionaires.

Director-cowriter Adam McKay is better known for silly movies like Anchorman, so he packs this film with raucous cutaways to pop culture references of the period, as well as hilariously absurd explanations of economic issues from, for example, Margot Robbie in a bubble bath or Selena Gomez playing blackjack. This approach actually heightens the horror of what's going on as fraudulent bankers and corrupt government officials conspire to undermine the foundations of the economy. Although the explanations still feel like gibberish to mere mortals, it's at least presented in a way that's entertaining.

Continue reading: The Big Short Review

It's been nearly 10 years since we first met Ron Burgundy, and this sequel is just as random and silly as expected. It's also more like a series of referential gags than an actual movie comedy, and as with the original film the best bits are knowing jabs at absurdities of the news media. This time we're in the 1980s, so there's plenty to make fun of here.

Over the past decade, Ron (Ferrell) has married Veronica (Applegate), and they've taken a joint anchor job in New York, where they live with their son (Nelson). But when Veronica lands a coveted network news job, Ron has a meltdown. Drunk and unemployed, he's approached to work on a new station: a 24-hour cable news channel. Even though he's sure this crazy idea will never catch on, Ron re-assembles his old team (swaggering reporter Rudd, dazed weatherman Carell and goofy sports guy Koechner) to beat handsome anchor Jack Lime (Marsden) in the ratings. And Ron's offbeat, populist approach changes the news forever.

This comical exploration of how TV news has shifted from hard reporting to shameless audience pandering gives the film a whiff of depth, which helps make the comical moments a lot funnier. The screenplay is a series of sketch-comedy episodes that don't quite hang together. For example, you could delete an extended sequence in which Ron goes blind, nurses a shark to health and sings a big musical number, and the movie wouldn't change at all. But all of these sequences have an absurd genius behind them that often gets us laughing, sometimes in disbelief.

Continue reading: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Review

Will Ferrell's funniest movie in years, this is a silly comedy with a terrible sentimental streak, but the political satire running through it is dead on. In fact, the film's opening act is razor-sharp as it lampoons election campaigning with knowing jabs at corporate sponsorship, incumbent laziness and the difficulty of being an honest candidate. So it's disappointing when the film becomes soppy and stupid.

Ferrell creates a memorable comical character in Cam Brady, a five-term North Carolina congressman up for re-election. He's sure he will coast his way back into office, and is only mildly worried when naive local goofball Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) runs against him. Marty certainly isn't ready for the slick attacks orchestrated by Cam's campaign manager (Sudeikis). But two wealthy brothers (the underused Lithgow and Aykroyd) are bankrolling Marty's campaign in the hopes of turning the district into a Chinese sweatshop, so they hire a ruthless press officer (McDermott) to whip Marty into shape. And the game is on.

Even though the characters are cartoonish, what they do is eerily authentic. Cam is a smooth operator with strong hair and a womanising streak. He also believes he can do whatever he wants as long as he mentions "America, Jesus and freedom" in every speech. By contrast, Marty is camp and silly, with a plump wife (Baker) and kids, plus a pair of pet pugs that Cam instantly labels as "Communist Chinese dogs!" Their clashes are a riot of parody and slapstick, some of which is sharply pointed (neither says anything substantial) and some is just ridiculous (including a hilarious cameo from Uggy, the dog from The Artist).

Continue reading: The Campaign Review

The trio in question are Dunst, Fisher and Caplan, high school friends who reunite in New York as bridesmaids for Becky (a cleverly against-type Wilson), a girl none of them ever really liked. On the night before the marriage, they're goofing around with Becky's rather large wedding dress, and they tear it. So now they have one long night to get it repaired. Along the way, they run into the stag night for Becky's groom (MacArthur) and his chucklehead friends (Scott, Marsden and Bornheimer).

Continue reading: Bachelorette Review

New York cops Gamble and Hoitz (Ferrell and Wahlberg) have been relegated to unimportant positions by two teams of flashier detectives (Jackson/Johnson and Wayans/Riggle). But when Gamble arrests a millionaire investor (Coogan) for a minor infraction, he and Hoitz are plunged into a murky case involving a ruthless Aussie goon (Stevenson) and bribed city officials. Even their captain (Keaton) tells them to leave it alone, but Gamble can't let go and Hoitz sees this as a chance to stop being the "other guys".

Continue reading: The Other Guys Review

Anchorman launches us into the world of '70s broadcast journalism with local San Diego anchor Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) as the poster boy for men behaving badly. His supporting anchors introduce themselves by breaking the fourth wall with all the casual gusto of their on-air personas. There's good-ol'-boy Champ Kind (David Koechner) with sports, ladies' man Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) in the field, and dumb-as-a-Brick Tamland (Steven Carell) on weather. They revel in their boys' club with gleeful ignorance of terms like "sexual harassment" until new reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) enters the fray. Improbably, Ron and Veronica hit it off until a series of events puts her in the co-anchor seat and professional jealousy rips them apart, sending Ron on a downward spiral.

Continue reading: Anchorman Review