Blades of Glory: Calculated Idiocy Goes for the Gold
Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Amy Poehler, Will Arnett

Review by Breanne Boland April 19, 2007 Issue

Will Ferrell has said that he’s working on movies about Men of Unearned Arrogance. What started with Old School and was carried through Anchorman and Talladega Nights now appears in Blades of Glory, in which he stars as a curiously acclaimed figure skater who lives the good life — groupies, drugs, and all the custom-made leather clothing one can hope for. That is until a skirmish with another skater leads to a lifelong ban from competitive skating. After struggling for several years, he and his accomplice (played by Napoleon Dynamite’s Jon Heder) exploit a loophole in the Skating Federation’s rules, becoming the first two man pair in figure skating history.

Don’t get me wrong: there are crotch jokes. The many crotch-centric poses and moves in figure skating are exploited for all they’re worth. But the good and surprising thing about this particular brand of comedy, the kind that starts with a ludicrous plot and involves names like Ferrell, Wilson, and Stiller, is that they know when to stop. Maybe Ferrell learned this from his time spent stretching a joke until it screamed on Saturday Night Live. These movies are hardly paradigms of restraint, but unlike many broad comedies, they know when to let it rest.

It helps that the film doesn’t rest on Ferrell’s shoulders. Heder is admirably deadpan as his partner, a fluffy blond man with a penchant for pastels and sparkles even off the ice. Aside from a funny bit of dancing, Napoleon Dynamite is nowhere to be seen. Amy Poehler and Will Arnett play the evil, underhanded adversaries, a brother-sister pair prone to cheating and ludicrous costumes (JFK and Marilyn Monroe on ice, anyone?). Arnett is best known for his role as Gob in Arrested Development, and he works the same malevolent-yet-brain dead schtick here.

Friendships are forged, obstacles are overcome, and the deserving parties triumph. But it works — like romantic comedies, it combines several feel-good elements, but it spikes it with weird and slightly gross humor, making it more palatable for everyone.

Possibly even professional skaters themselves. While the choreography is far from realistic — Ferrell doesn’t quite have an athlete’s physique — the film has a roster of cameos tantamount to an endorsement by most well known skaters working today. Nancy Kerrigan, Dorothy Hamill, and Brian Boitano all make appearances, and several others are name checked in a way that makes it obvious some consent had to be granted. And that’s what makes these films so enjoyable — while the premises are, naturally, laughable, the stories are actually very respectful. They choose easy targets — professional car racing, pompous 1970s quasi-celebrities, 30-something binge-drinking man-children — but the jokes are seldom at the expense of the subject matter. The characters may have unearned arrogance, but it may as well be fed by the reverence paid to the material.

Bottom line: not a new idea, but still a good one

Coming Attractions

April 20t
Hot Fuzz - A cop comedy from the director, writers, and stars of Shaun of the Dead, the best romantic comedy with zombies ever made. This means an easy premise will end up being more clever and better written than is expected, or than it needs to be.

Fracture - Anthony Hopkins plays a vegetarian Hannibal Lecter-type character, a master criminal whose violent enigma stands between Ryan Gosling’s ambitious young lawyer and his career. Expect lots of contempt, many riddles, and a bright spot with costar David Strathairn.

Vacancy - Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale are a married couple who end up trapped in a hotel room, left to wonder how they came to be in such a picture. Actually, the director has some good work behind him, so a cheesy premise may flower in unexpected ways.

April 27
Next - Another loose Philip K. Dick adaptation, this one eschewing the experimental medium of A Scanner Darkly in favor of Nicolas Cage with unfortunate hair as a psychic blackmailed into helping the government avoid a terrorist attack.

Wind Chill - A horror flick in which two students become stranded on a stretch of road haunted by the many victims claimed within its boundaries. The bright spark of possibility comes from the director, who has worked with Steven Soderbergh on almost a dozen films.

The Invisible - Two teenagers are left invisible after tragedy and must try to contact those around them to put things right. A remake of a well-regarded Swedish film, directed by the writer of Batman Begins.

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