Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy HD DVD Review (2007)

Local television news anchors and their newscasts are easy targets to skewer, so here, in the new HD DVD version of the popular Will Ferrell comedy, broad skewering ensues.

The film is 91 minutes of tongue-in-cheek hair pulling, which is especially cheeky since the group getting its hair pulled would rather not have theirs touched, thank you very much.

Set in the early 1970s, Ferrell is Ron Burgundy, the enormously popular, hirsute television anchor for San Diego's Channel 4, who loves his scotch and his lady friends almost as much as he loves being No. 1 in the ratings.

Sure Burgundy is an idiot, but people like his macho bluster and they especially like the way he ends each newscast: "Stay classy, San Diego."

But when station manager Ed Harken (Fred Willard) hires reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) to add diversity to the newsroom, chauvinist Ron is forced to admit he might have met his match in a woman.

With the help of his bumbling news team--closeted gay sportscaster Champ Kind (David Koechner), dim-witted weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), and investigative reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd)--he decides to fight back.

The result is a movie that hits on many unwanted industry truths, and which becomes enjoyably unhinged in the process.

Rated PG-13. Grade: B+