Movie review- The Campaign

Movie title: The Campaign

Running time:  85 minutes

Directed by:  Jay Roach

Starring: Will Ferrel, Zach Galifiankis

South Carolina congressman Cam Brady is campaigning for a fourth term. Running unopposed, he is a religious, patriotic family man to his people but behind the facade he is careless, philandering and unfit to lead.  His suitability and popularity comes into question when he accidentally leaves a raunchy message to one of his lovers on the answering machine of an overly Christian family.

His financiers, The Motch brothers, two extremely wealthy industrialists, need a candidate that will push their business agenda which include building Chinese factories in the state and placing “Made in America” tags on dolls actually made in china by children earning 50 cents an hour. After Cam Brady’s humorous but failed attempt to redeem himself following the message, they decide to back another horse.

They get Marty Huggins, the son of their ally and the head of the local tourism office to run against Brady. It does not help that Huggins is a man child who wears a waist wallet, attends a ladies gym and struts around two identical mutts with matching bow ties. Cam has a field day destroying him. 

After Huggins is humiliated in a few rallies, the Motch brothers, not ones to give up easily, send Tim Wattley a haughty, mysterious, straight faced man to reshape Huggins and manage his campaign. Tom changes everything from Marty Huggins’ way of talking, posture and dressing to his children’s bed time.

What follows is a series of fierce battles between the new and improved Marty Huggins and the incumbent Cam Brady for the seat. They employ all sorts of absurd and humorous campaign techniques that lead to snake bites, babies being punched and even a pornographic campaign video.

At its timely release, “The campaign” tries to shine a light on how dirty politics can be and how the drive to win influences the candidates into doing all manners of absurdities. It’s a story of politics, guns, family, corruption and bandana wearing dogs. The lead acts Will Ferrel and Zach Galifiankis who play Cam Brady and Marty Huggins respectively, do their roles justice.  Will Ferrel who previously starred in “Stranger than Fiction”, is able to bring out his carefree, tomcatting character to life while Zach Galifiankis does not disappoint in his wimpy but loveable antics that we’ve previously seen in “Due date” and “The Hangover”.

In its initial stages the film is quite comical with Cam Brady giving everyone from teachers to park workers the credit for being the backbone of the country and establishing  Marty Huggins awkward relationship with his father.  However, as you proceed, the film, directed by Jay Roach famous for  “Meet the parents” and “Meet the Fockers”, seems to loose its sense of direction.

 The script lacks the seriousness to make it a proper political satire and a lot of its humor is driven by vertiginous vulgarity, offensive talk and even in one case, tasteless nudity. The makers in some instances seem to go well out of their way just to throw in a dozen more curse words scene after scene. There are unpleasant instances of children listening to music with lewd lyrics and sexual connotations are pushed to the extreme.

Every now and then, the film breaks into spiels trying to address an important issue such as the media’s role in bad politics or the plight of child labor; these scenes are however marred in vulgarity so much that the point is lost.  “The campaign” is a far cry from other big political films such as Alan Pakula’s “All the president’s men” or Barry Levinson’s “Wag the Dog” that have shaped the genre.

In as far as comedy for comedy’s sake goes, there are numerous laughs to be gotten from “The campaign” but if intelligent humor is your cup of tea, then this is not the restaurant for you.