Product Description

The fastest man on four wheels, Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) is one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. A big, hairy American winning machine, Ricky has everything a dimwitted daredevil could want, a luxurious mansion, a smokin' hot wife and all the fast food he can eat. But Ricky's turbo-charged lifestyle hits an unexpected speed bump when he's bested by flamboyant Euro-idiot Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen, TV's "Da Ali G Show") and reduced to a fear-ridden wreck. Losing his wife and job to best bud and fellow fool, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly), Ricky must kick some serious asphalt if he's to get his career back on the track, beat Girard and reclaim his fame and fortune. 'Cause as Ricky Bobby always says, IF YOU AIN'T FIRST, YOU'RE LAST!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19957 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2006-12-12
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .30 pounds
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.com

Sweet baby Jesus, we thank you for blessing Will Ferrell and Adam McKay with the talent to create a NASCAR comedy as hilarious as Talladega Nights. The so-called "Ballad of Ricky Bobby" is hardly flawless in fact it's not always firing on all cylinders but with comedy star Ferrell and director McKay still hot from the success of their previous comedy hit Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, most of this 108-minute spoof of oval-track racing is so knee-slappin' funny that you can't help but surrender to the stupidity.

Obviously, Ferrell's the shining star, and his portrayal of lead-footed pit-crew-member-turned-#1 NASCAR champion Ricky "I Wanna Go Fast" Bobby (how can you not love that name?) is spot-on perfect, righteously spoofing the entirety of NASCAR culture without insulting its oft-ridiculed roots in redneck bootlegging of a bygone era. You could even argue that Talladega Nights is truer to NASCAR than Tom Cruise's Days of Thunder, and it's certainly more entertaining, especially when you add John C. Reilly as Ricky's life-long pal, teammate, and eventual rival Cal Naughton, Jr. (together they're nicknamed "Shake 'n Bake"), and Sacha Baron Cohen (from Da Ali G Show and Borat) as gay French "Formula Un" driver-turned NASCAR rival Jean Girrard, to a stellar cast including Molly Shannon, Greg Germann, Amy Adams and Michael Clarke Duncan.

Sure, it's mostly a showcase for Ferrell's loud, over-the-top antics and nonsensical non sequiturs (like cameo appearances by Elvis Costello and Mos Def), but with Ferrell behind the wheel, Talladega Nights rolls into victory lane with fuel to spare, and there's one final bit of comedy (with a tip of the hat to William Faulkner) for those who sit through the credits. --Jeff Shannon

Stills from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby(click for larger image)

More NASCAR and Talladega Nights at Amazon.com

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Customer Reviews

Theatrical PG-13 cut is great. So called unrated/uncut version is a bust.
Talladega Nights is a very, very funny movie that spoofs Nascar without actually making fun of it and its fans. In fact, this movie can actually appeal to people who don't even care for Nascar.

Will Ferrel teamed back up with Adam McKay (the duo who produced/made the great Anchorman) to make this story that plays a lot like if Days of Thunder had been approached as a comedy instead of a dead serious (and unintentionally funny) film.

While other people are focusing on the film itself, I would like to focus on the this whole mess of the PG-13 theatrical cut being released in wide and full screen along with (what is unfortunately a common practice) a "UNRATED/UNCUT" versions that boasts "13 additional minutes of footage".

Now, for one thing, the theatrical cut was 108 minutes and actually could have used some more tightening. This is a 100 minute movie at most. I don't have a problem with people putting footage back into a DVD version of a movie if it's stuff that belongs and actually makes the movie better.

This is a case, in which it doesn't. The additional 13 minutes cause some scenes that were funny in the theatrical cut to drag on until they're at an interminable length in some cases. The added footage actually dilutes the humor in places.

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But the alarming thing about this so called "UNCUT" version is that the movie actually ELIMINATES A FEW MEMORABLE SCENES THAT WERE PRESENT IN THE THEATRICAL CUT. The scene in which a young Ricky steals his mom's car while she's in a convenience store is gone, which totally destroys the whole part in which Ricky volunteers to drive his team's car by saying "I wanna to go fast".

Also, the scene in which Ricky calls Lucious at Lucios' car wash to tell him he's racing again at Talladega is gone as well. This scene showed just what Lucious and his pit crew had been up to during Ricky's hiatus from racing.
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If they had left everything in the theatrical cut and just added footage, I maybe could have lived with it. But the fact that they cut footage out is a travesty and false advertising to people who loved the movie in theaters.

Most of the added footage just grinds the movie to a halt and like I mentioned before, as funny as the movie is, it was still about 8 minutes too long even in the theatrical cut.

There are very few cases in which I feel that an extended version of a movie was superior (lord of the rings trilogy, 40 year old virgin) and in most cases it's just a case of DVD producers putting out an early cut or something of a movie that was tweaked after the fact during test screenings. This is how the unrated cut of Talladega Nights comes across.

So, if you loved the movie in theaters, just stick with the PG-13 theatrical widescreen cut. If you haven't seen the movie before, I would see this cut first before testing out the unrated cut. Many will share the same opinion that I have about this.

I'm really sick of pointless "unrated" cuts coming out that just shoe horn back in footage that was taken out for a good reason to begin with.

This is not the movie you saw in the theatre.
Before you buy this DVD you must know this is not the movie you saw in the theatre. The cover art says uncut, that is a boldface lie. One of the funniest scenes in the movie, when young Ricky drives his mother's car has been deleted. It is not in the deleted scenes, it has been removed as if it never existed.

Other scenes have been altered to add material that was rightfully let out of the theatrical release. The new material is not funny, and ruins the pace of the original. I was very disappointed that Sony would offer this mishappen DVD as the original movie. A great cry of protest should ring out to the studios letting them know that alteration of a product for DVD release is not acceptable.

I Loved This Movie and I Don't Watch Nascar!
Everybody in my theater was cracking up throughout the entire movie. This is my favorite Will Ferrell movie by far. He really nails the part and doesn't abuse his comic gifts. John C. Reilly as his best bud, Gary Cole as his wacky father, and the french rival, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, are great as well. I really haven't had this much fun watching a comedy at the theater in a long time, there are just so many lines that are destined to become classic. I will be adding this one to my DVD collection for sure.