Although he’s on top, Ferrell pales compared to his contemporaries

By Frank Visco
Collegian Editor
April 4, 2007

Obviously a large portion of Americans love themselves some Will Ferrell. His Blades of Glory is the number one movie in the country with over $33 million already in the bank. However, after having seen that film, I can’t help but shake the feeling that Ferrell is stuck in a comedy rut.

In Blades of Glory, Ferrell rehashes the same archetype from Anchorman and Talladega Nights, and some might not see this as a problem. Many Americans just want to see Ferrell in a silly comedy. That’s fine, but there’s silly good comedy, and silly bad comedy, and Ferrell seems to be falling into the latter.

If Ferrell was making silly films on the level of Anchorman, with a similarly sharp script and solid satire, I wouldn’t be complaining, but the problem is that he’s virtually making the same film each time out, except less funny with horrible character development and weak satire.

This criticism may come as a surprise to some, especially considering Ferrell’s solid turn in last fall’s Stranger than Fiction. However, that just compounds the problem for me. A movie like that shows that Ferrell can essay a three dimensional character, so why can’t he bring that to his funny films?

The big problem is that unlike his most successful contemporaries—Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler—it’s nearly impossible to identify with Ferrell because he hasn’t been able to shake his SNL sensibilities. Each of his “tentpole” films seems to be based around the broad outline of “Will Ferrell as (fill in the blank),” when in actuality the guy should be developing solid scripts with solid characters.

The fact that Ferrell does not do this makes it very hard to look at his films as anything else but an extended skit. This results in characters who are nothing more than caricatures, which makes it hard to relate to or care about them. This isn’t always bad (I loved Borat and I thought Ferrell was aces in Anchorman), but it makes it far more difficult to infuse a story with any semblance of a rooting interest.

I’m not trying to say I don’t think Ferrell is one of the funniest men in Hollywood, and that I won’t be checking out his next film. But what I am trying to say is that his films lack a certain humanity that his contemporaries bring to theirs. For example, Sandler and Stiller have made a lot of duds, but in most of their films, they exhibit an everyman quality that makes even their tepid efforts (Meet the Fockers, Click, etc.) seem worth the ride in some way.

Even better is Vaughn, who has made some very silly comedies (i.e. Dodgeball), but has also been very influential in getting solid comedies with substance made (Wedding Crashers and The Breakup). Furthermore, while Ferrell has two broad comedies lined up, Vaughn is preparing several interesting roles in films for Sean Penn and David O. Russell. In addition, he’s simultaneously working on a broad comedy as well (Fred Clause), which looks likely to have many of the things that Ferrell’s films lack (a human core, relatable characters, etc.).

I don’t think that Ferrell should stop doing silly comedies completely. However, I think he could toe the line better and at least mix it up a bit. Furthermore, the guys got acting chops, so he should use them. He brought humanity to a ridiculous role in Old School, and there’s no denying he can do it again if he wants to. Hopefully one of his two upcoming films, Semi-Pro and Step Brothers, will force him to do this. If not, the man should really seek out some better scripts as opposed to creating an endless amount of broad concepts because the shtick’s getting old fast.

viscof1@lasalle.edu