When actress Carol Burnett spoke the famous words “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” she obviously had never met Will Ferrell.

In his new, Spanish-language comedy flick “Casa de Mi Padre,” released March 16, Ferrell throws together disparate parts of agony, love, death, Mexican drug wars and slapstick humor to create a heterogeneous yet hilarious 84-minute laughing session.

The story begins with Armando Alvarez (Ferrell), described consistently throughout the movie as a “dirty rancher,” and his two amigos rancheros Manuel (Adrian Martinez) and Esteban (Efren Ramirez of Napoleon Dynamite), watching over the Alvarez cattle herd and discussing Armando’s love of the land and lack of a woman.

However, on the friends’ journey back to the Alvarez estate, they witness a brutal crime in which drug lord Onza (Gael García Bernal), has his henchmen beat up a rancher before Onza delivers the coup de grace. He then proceeds to tie the rancher to his car, and drag him along his away.

Armando and friends, looking out for their own hides and laughing off the incident, make their way back to the luxurious Mexican estate of Armando’s father (Pedro Armendáriz), where they learn that Raul (Diego Luna) and his sexy fiance (Génesis Rodrígues) are arriving. Their arrival leads to a string events, in which Armando learns that his brother Raul is a drug dealer who has actually returned home to begin a drug war with rival Onza.

From that point on, all hell breaks loose, as cowardly and simple Armando struggles to embrace his duty to avenge the killing of his family, the kidnapping of his new love-interest, and the long-repressed death of his mother.

With such a morbid plot, one might question how this film could be a comedy, much less a funny one. But, chances are that same individual has never seen a Will Ferrell film, as they would otherwise understand that Ferrell, alongside Director Matt Piedmont (formerly a Saturday Night Live writer),can turn blood into comedic gold.

For example, even during a scene in which the Alvarez wedding is assaulted by La Onza’s gunmen, somehow through the myriad bullets and overly-animated death scenes, it leaves the audiences laughing against their better judgement.

Inundated with allusions to telenovelas, and “the Godfather,” this movie pokes fun at the rigid dialogue and action of shoot-’em-up classics and Westerns, with such scenes as described above, and also synchronizes a variety of classic-Ferrell comedy stunts exhibited in his other movies.

Any connoisseur of Ferrell flicks will happily recognize the significance and comedic value to the musical outbursts such as “No sé” in “Casa de Mi Padre,” reminiscent of “Anchorman’s” “Afternoon Delight” rendition. Also, anyone who’s seen “Zoolander” will recognize the psychoneurotic montage that “Armando experiences in the realm of the white tiger with that of Ben Stiller’s “relaxation” with Ferrell in Mugatu’s massage parlor.

At times, it seemed as though the filmmakers and actors had just as much fun making the movie as I had watching it, especially given the blatant disregard for special effects — exemplified by clearly-fake backdrops and even a shot of the film crew, arbitrarily placed in the middle of a scene. At one point, the filmmakers paused a scene involving a war between a white tiger and wolves, and supplanted it with a humorously apologetic note narrated by “the second assistant camera man” apologizing for the inability of the filmmakers to show the scene in light of its gruesome nature.

In all honesty, however, “Casa de Mi Padre” and Will Ferrell are an acquired taste. If one understands and appreciates his brand of humor, he or she will truly enjoy this movie. If not, it may seem as though the outrageous $10 ticket you purchased would have been better spent on a library card or down payment on binoculars for bird-watching, if you catch my drift.