R-Rated Raunchy Comedy Gives Will Ferrell His Funniest Appearance, Stream Without Netflix
Will Ferrell has brought countless laughs into the lives of fans since his debut on the long-running NBC series Saturday Night Live in the 1990s. A lucrative film career followed, with supporting roles in Old School and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery giving fans as many laughs as his starring characters in Step Brothers, Elf, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. But arguably his funniest bit part was in the often-overlooked 2009 comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, where Ferrell plays the best friend of a gimmicky car salesman.
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
The Goods follows Don Ready (Jeremy Piven), a ruthless car salesman that is hired by the owner of a failing dealership in Temecula, California. Ben Selleck (James Brolin) is desperate for sales to increase, with more than 200 needing to be sold over the upcoming 4th of July weekend or else face closure. Using gimmicks that range from raucous cookouts to false statements about the lot owner dying of testicular cancer, Don and his team of salespersons make a large dent in the inventory.
The Worst Kind Of Publicity Stunts
Relationship woes, a failed musical performance, and other problems plague Don and his crew as they try to continue their successes in day two. After a crowd riot in the parking lot gives the team an opportunity to sell cars to police at a discount, things begin to look up again. But when it’s proposed that Don parachute onto the parking lot the following day for another publicity stunt, the car salesman reveals part of his history that brings Will Ferrell’s character into frame.
Enter: Will Ferrell As Abraham Lincoln
In The Goods, Will Ferrell plays McDermott, Don’s former best friend and the sales team’s DJ. Don frames a flashback scene where he tells his love interest Ivy (Jordana Spiro) about how he convinced McDermott to dress as Abraham Lincoln and parachute into the parking lot of his former dealership in Albuquerque. With lines like “Just like John Wilkes Booth, we’re gonna sneak up behind you and blow your brains out,” and “I just freed the slaves and now I’m going to free those cars from the slavery of high prices,” McDermott leaps from the open door.
Plenty Of Mishaps
But Don reveals that he accidentally gave his best friend a backpack loaded with adult toys instead of a parachute, leading McDermott to fall to his death as the aforementioned contents of the backpack drift down with him.
On screen for less than a minute in this scene in The Goods, Will Ferrell‘s ridiculous lines and over-the-top enthusiasm give the actor one of his best comedic performances.
Get The Goods On Streaming
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As predictable as it is zany, The Goods succeeds in bringing audiences a ton of comedy stars onto the screen together. David Koechner, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, Rob Riggle, Alan Thicke, Craig Robinson, Kristen Schaal, and more deliver solid dialogue in a film peppered heavily with one-liners and quotable material. Solid leading performances by Piven and co-star Ving Rhames make the film even more memorable.
You can catch The Goods streaming for free on Pluto TV.
