The fast and the funny: Ferrell's NASCAR spoof

Ricky Bobby gets to have his cupcakes - and his KFC and Domino's and Country Crock - and eat them, too. The absurdly funny Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, with Will Ferrell as a natural-born stock car star, is at once a glorious send-up of NASCAR culture and a goofy celebration of the redneck, red state, red-blooded American culture that spawned it.

Written by Ferrell and Adam McKay, and directed by McKay - the same distribution of duties they shared in the almost-as-lengthily-titled Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy - Talladega Nights is the follow-your-dream saga of a North Carolina knucklehead who lives by the motto, "If you ain't first, you're last."

Born in the backseat of a car and soon thereafter abandoned by his deadbeat dad (Gary Cole), Ricky Bobby grows up with just one thing on his mind: going fast.

He enters the racing circuit as a lowly pit crew member of a last-place team (its sponsor: Laughing Clown Malt Liquor). But when the team's driver decides to take a mid-race break, Ricky gets his chance, sliding behind the wheel and dazzling the crowd with his daredevil driving. From there, it's just one victory after another, and the sponsorships (Wonder Bread, Good Year, Nextel - the film's a veritable orgy of product placement) that go with them.

Along the way, he acquires a fancy McMansion and a saucy, pin-up bride (Leslie Bibb), who quickly produces a pair of potty-mouthed brats, named Walker and T.R. (for Texas Ranger). There's a dinner table scene, as the family gathers for a fast-food feast that would do Elvis proud, that's just about brilliant: Joined by wife Carley's senile old pop and Ricky's childhood best friend and racing partner, Cal (John C. Reilly), the group waits to dig in as Ricky says grace to "baby Jesus" - triggering a long and loony debate on the various incarnations of the Christ figure. It's a sublime moment of deep-dish theological discourse.

Ferrell, tall, flabby and fiercely narrow-eyed (as if he's just been hit by a baseball bat), seems to do this stuff effortlessly. He inhabits Ricky Bobby. Perhaps not in the same way that Brando, say, inhabited Terry Malloy, but in the arena of riffing spoof, Ferrell is thoroughly, and happily, committed. And the supporting cast, which includes Michael Clarke Duncan as the pit crew chief, Jane Lynch, Amy Adams, and Greg Germann, all rise - or sink - to the occasion. (Be sure to stay for the closing-credit outtakes, in which Duncan does a laughable Donna Summer impression.)

That said, it's Sacha Baron Cohen who just about steals Talladega Nights. The British star of Ali G fame plays Ricky Bobby's arch-nemesis. His name: Jean Girard. His provenance: France. His sponsor: Perrier. Speaking through a set of nasty-looking, tightly clenched teeth in the faux-est of faux French accents, Cohen is hilarious. The close-up shots of Girard in his car, roaring down the Talladega Speedway, are classic: One time he's daintily sipping a macchiato, the next he's reading Camus. And if being a Gaul isn't alienating enough for the freedom-fries, hetero crowd, Jean Girard also blithely declares that he is gay.

At their first fateful, fraught-with-tension encounter in a bar, Jean Girard proudly extols the virtues of his land to Ricky Bobby and all the other snickering, sneering USA-ers in the room.

"We invented democracy, and existentialism," he offers, "and the menage a trois."

Pass that bucket of Colonel Sanders, will ya?

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby *** (out of four stars)

Produced by Jimmy Miller and Judd Apatow, directed by Adam McKay, written by Will Ferrell and McKay, photography by Oliver Wood, music by Alex Wurman, distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 50 mins.

Ricky Bobby. . . Will Ferrell

Cal Naughton, Jr.. . . John C. Reilly

Jean Girard. . . Sacha Baron Cohen

Carley Bobby. . . Leslie Bibb

Parent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, comic mayhem, adult themes)

Playing at: area theaters