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TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY Like Spam, energy drinks and the music of Yanni, Will Ferrell is one of those acquired tastes that satisfy devotees while perplexing everyone else. Yet even folks who weren't entertained by his 2004 starring vehicle Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy should dig this latest offering -- while it never reaches the giddy highs of last summer's premiere stupid-smart comedy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, it's consistently pleasurable and offers a surprisingly steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments. Like Ron Burgundy, Ricky Bobby is also an egotistical, none-too-bright boor. "I piss excellence," he declares, and his standing as NASCAR's best driver certainly signals that he's excellent at something. But his strained relationship with his deadbeat dad (Gary Cole, delivering the film's shrewdest comic performance) and the arrival of a formidable opponent, a French homosexual race car driver (hilarious Sacha Baron Cohen), leads to his fall from grace and his subsequent (and humbled) climb back to the top. The Highlander quips alone are worth the ticket price. ***
TRUST THE MAN Even Julianne Moore's formidable talents can't compensate for the sheer wretchedness of this indie effort, about as bad as any major-studio item released this year. Moore plays Rebecca, a respected New York actress whose sex-crazed "house husband" Tom (David Duchovny) dallies with online porn and a luscious single mom (Dagmara Dominczyk) since his wife isn't willing to boff him twice a month, let alone his desired quota of twice a day. Meanwhile, Tobey (Billy Crudup), Rebecca's brother and Tom's best friend, is bummed because his girlfriend Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal) wants him to not only grow up (he's 36 but acts like he's 12) but also to father her child. Trust the Man is an artificial Big Apple production that's rotten to its core, with banal dialogue, loathsome characters (Tom and Tobey) and ludicrous scenarios assaulting us at every turn. Except for a grasping Crudup, the performers ably keep their heads above water, but what possessed them to sign up for this arduous tour of duty? Moore, at least, has an excuse: She's married to writer-director Bart Freundlich and couldn't exactly say no. *
WORLD TRADE CENTER The most startling thing about this 9/11 drama is that it's by far the least controversial movie Oliver Stone has ever made. There's practically nothing in the way of gonzo filmmaking, political commentary or outrageous acting -- instead, the entire film operates at a hushed level, its nobility standing tall in every frame. It's hard to find any trace of potentially incendiary material; it's also hard to get terribly excited over the final product. The picture focuses on the police officers (played by Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) who would turn out to be two of the only 20 people rescued from the rubble of the Twin Towers. Stone and scripter Andrea Berloff manage several powerful moments, but the end result is still a movie that feels oddly impersonal. That's in striking contrast to United 93, the superb docudrama that provided audiences with a you-are-there immediacy. Every second of United 93 related in some way to the specific events of that day. On the other hand, replace these real-life characters with two fictional guys trapped in a collapsed building, and what you're left with is a 1970s-style TV movie-of-the-week, the sort that invariably starred the likes of Christopher George or Lee Majors. **1/2
OPENS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15:
THE BLACK DAHLIA: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson.
EVERYONE'S HERO: Animated; voices of William H. Macy, Whoopi Goldberg.
GRIDIRON GANG: The Rock, Xzibit.
THE LAST KISS: Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett.
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