What makes a man?

More importantly what makes an Anchorman?

Will Ferrell and the co-stars of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy which supplies laugh after laugh in what is truly one of the funniest films of the year.

Taking us back to the 1970’s in the fair city of San Diego, the tale revolves around the adventures of lead Anchor Ron Burgundy. Local talking head to the city who finds his world shaken to its very core by the introduction of the new ambitious Veronica Corningstone [Christina Applegate] who shares with Ron the dream of being a network anchor.

Ferrell, coming off the recent Old School and Elf makes Burgundy a borderline clueless ladies man who is a slave to the teleprompter and as all Ferrell endeavors, shamelessly over the top in ways a normal human could never be. What makes Ferrell stand out is his refusal to go for the easy joke, he takes a scene like Burgundy playing jazz flute and just when we expect Ferrell to go into a mediocre mess he hits us with perfection and then continues upwards from there.

The delight is that Burgundy never gets ahead of his friends and fellow reporters. Each of them [Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and David Koechner] is never boring or tired. Certain scenes consist of simply them alternating one liners to one, it’s this attempt to one up the other that makes Anchorman shine as it dips into insanity and back, from over the top to just plain out there. The pinnacle of which occurs during a cameo laden anchorbrawl that leaves even the characters themselves are in amazement of the lapse in logic the brawl contains as it involves the local networks brawling through the use of BBQ prongs, fashioned clubs, swords, tridents, grenades, saws, and men on horseback in a gratuitous homage to Planet of the Apes.

The brawl of course deals with the rivalry between Burgundy and the unfortunately named Wes Mantooth [The superb Vince Vaughn] who wishes to unseat Burgundy from his throne and assume top spot.

Burgundy meanwhile has to deal with the acceptance of a woman in the workplace, as Veronica with her obvious superiority sends Burgundy in a downward spiral until his attempt for redemption.

Anchorman really doesn’t contain any moral in its climax, it is a mishmash of fistfights, quips and a reference to the Avengers of old, but make no mistake this is Ferrells crowning achievement thus far.