It’s entirely appropriate that the Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign is set in North Carolina because as much as one would expect Ferrell to resurrect his George W. Bush impersonation to play Congressman Cam Brady, the politician that Ferrell is really imitating here is North Carolina’s own John Edwards. Ferrell’s sleazy, philandering Newton who gets by on his natural charm is an almost dead-ringer for the disgraced Edwards, and it’s refreshing to see Ferrell take his political comedy in another direction (especially since he essentially already played his Bush character in Talladega Nights). Mix in Galifianakis, who amps up the effeminate nature of his Alan character from The Hangover (although he’s suspiciously treading on similar ground as Jack Black did as the title character in Bernie) as challenger Marty Huggins, and you should have a winner. The key word here is should, because The Campaign is a mix between hits and near misses in its brief 85 minutes.
With The Campaign, director Jay Roach has finally combined his two favorite genres: comedy (he directed the Austin Powers movies and the first two Meet the Parents films) and politics (he directed HBO’s Recount and Game Change). Of course, being a comedy it’s a bit light on political commentary: while Ferrell’s character runs on the Democratic ticket and Galifianakis’ on the Republican ticket, the movie doesn’t deal with any particular issues spearheaded by either party. In fact, the only issues the movie focuses on are the ever-increasing amount of mudslinging in politics and campaign finance reform, something neither party seems to want to focus on since they’re both raking in obscene amounts of money.
The movie is almost completely focused on Newton and Huggins’ campaign for a Congressional seat, with Huggins handpicked by the sleazy Motch brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) to run against Newton in the hopes that he’ll become a puppet for their big business interests. With the Motchs’ deep pockets the race reaches incredible levels of ridiculous violence and scandal in order to win, with Newton and Huggins doing just about everything to discredit the other except for talking about the issues in the community. Since the film is so dedicated to the two leads, there’s barely any room for supporting characters, meaning a lot of great actors (Aykroyd and Lithgow, along with Brian Cox and the very funny Karen Maruyama) are underutilized. Why hire Aykroyd and Lithgow to play evil businessmen if they’re not going to do anything particularly funny? Chris Cooper was a lot funnier as the evil oil baron Tex Richman in The Muppets, and he’s not even a comedian. Since supporting roles often steal the show in comedies, this was really disappointing.
The easiest way to judge a comedy is how it compares to the comedian’s prior work. The Campaign doesn’t come close to either Ferrell’s or Galifianakis’ best work, although there are plenty of laughs. It’s also sort of goofy that Roach and writers Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy attempt to tack on some serious messages about campaign finance reform at the end of a movie that involves so much ridiculousness. I don’t recall either Hangover movies trying to make a serious statement about sobriety or Step Brothers about family values, and it would’ve been good to follow that lead. However, The Campaign does do a great job of demonstrating how corrupt many politicians are and how some of them are just, well, terrible people. But that’s no secret in 2012 America, especially with Ferrell using Edwards, who has become a textbook example of a public image implosion, as a model for his character. Just because The Campaign takes it to its zenith of silliness doesn’t mean it isn’t true — after all, the movie doesn’t do anything that political cartoons haven’t been doing for over two centuries.
So The Campaign might not be the big winner you’d want it to be, but it still has a lot of great laughs. B-game Ferrell and Galifinakis is still better than most comedians’ A-games. It’s worth a look, but see it quickly — I’m not sure this movie will have the same rewatch value as other comedies once the 2012 election is in the books.
Rating: Some great laughs, but not as funny as either star’s solo work (6.5/10)
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