If you couldn’t tell by the
incessant ads on television, the tacky merchandize sold at the Wal-Mart, or the
heated battles of ideologies, presented nightly on the off-network pseudo-news,
it’s an election year folks. To commemorate and capitalize on this event, the
studios have brought us a broad and outrageous satire starring Will Ferrell and
Zach Galifianakis, two comedic giants with a lot of individual audience pull. In
“The Campaign”, who comes out as the victor in this summer’s war for our funny
bone? Though Ferrell and Galifianakis both have strong numbers, we might need a recount before we can be totally
sure.
If you
are old enough to remember, before he was a legitimate movie star, Will Ferrell
had made his name on Saturday Night Live, specializing in unlikable, creepy
characters that always said the wrong things in the worst of situations.
Eventually this talent led him to play George W. Bush, which was basically an
easy extension of the types of characters he had already mastered. His Bush had
a hefty amount of mocking but not without the right amount of heart to keep the
character grounded.
Zach
Galifianakis had a very different kind of career trajectory. He is a strange
kind of performance-art comedian, who has successfully mixed the dead pan delivery
of Mitch Hedberg with the man-against-audience unpredictability of Andy
Kaufman. You get the idea that ‘getting
into the pictures’ was never his end game, but since the popularity of “The
Hangover” he is been put in the position where he is now trying to sell his
eccentric appeal to the studios that are still not quite sure what to do with
it.
Ferrell
plays Cam Brady, a governor who plans to run unopposed in a small, North
Carolina district election. Despite the fact that he is always in the middle of
a scandal, he is confident of his upcoming success. Marty Huggins, played by Galifianakis, is a
political newbie who loves his pugs and Christmas sweaters more than he loves his
wife. Due to some swindling by the local ‘job creators’, he gets strong-armed
into the playing field by way of his hard-bitten father. What ensues is a
series of gags about red-state cliché’s, with a good dose of raunch and
irreverence for good measure.
Unfortunately,
with a premise ripe for clever political satire, this movie, directed by Jay
Roach (Dinner for Shmucks, Meet the Parents), just isn’t that smart. Being a
movie for all people, it never takes a firm political stance and therefore the
jokes never get to dig as deep into subject matter as I would have hoped.
Instead it prefers to go for the easier bawdy and vulgar humor that resonates
from sea to shining sea. Perhaps movies like 2009’s “In the Loop” or even 1998’s
“Primary Colors” do this kind of stuff with a little bit more conviction, but
if you can turn your brain off and submit to this particularly crass style of
buffoonery, then there is still plenty of laughs to be had in “The Campaign”.
This is
a film that was essentially made as a two-seated star vehicle, and as such it
gives both Ferrell and Galafianakis enough to show off their strengths. Many scenes, involving who gets to kiss the
baby first, who can out-Christian the other and which candidate can give the
better smear campaign, all lead to funny-- if not a bit obvious--moments that
will keep you chuckling on your way to the theater parking lot. If you are looking to see your two favorite
comedians overact off of each other, then this is your movie. If you are
looking for an insightful indictment of the American political system, save
your money, stay home, and watch The Daily Show.
Grade: B -
Originally Published in The Basic Alternative/Sep-2012
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