The Campaign Review
The Campaign is a smart and funny new comedy that makes fun of something that is very deserving of being mocked, political campaigns. Surprisingly the film manages to avoid dealing with the differences between Republicans and Democrats, and instead highlights how similar they are in their attempts to win votes. As someone who is extremely cynical when it comes to American politics I found most of the humor in this movie right up my alley.
Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis play two political rivals competing for a seat in congress for a small district in North Carolina. Ferrell’s Cam Brady is the career politician who knows all the dirty tricks that he can use to help give himself the edge, while Galifianakis plays Marty Huggins a naïve political newcomer who quickly resorts to similar negative tactics to try win the election. In watching this movie you will quickly realize that Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis are playing characters that are very similar to roles that they have played in the past. If you enjoy their typical brand of comedy, then you will probably enjoy them in this movie, if you are not a fan of it then chances are they won’t change your opinion of them with this film. The film also features Jason Sudeikis and Dylan McDermott as campaign managers, and Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow as two corrupt businessmen working to find a politician who will be sympathetic to their desires.
This movie does a great job of highlighting many of the ridiculous things that take place during actual political campaigns; the BS campaign promises, the pandering political speeches, the “unbiased” campaign advertisements, and of course the political debates. I laughed harder at these elements of the movie because I could see similarities to the current campaigns for the 2012 elections that are taking place right now. While this film has quite a few laugh out loud moments to it, it also has something to say about this aspect of our modern political system and the ridiculousness of it.
The Campaign is not a perfect movie and it does have some flaws that do hold it back a bit. The biggest one for me was the films ending. Without giving anything away I will simply say that in my opinion the movie played it too safe in the end. I don’t think that the ending really fit with the overall tone of the movie, and in some ways it felt a bit out of place.
Overall I was impressed with The Campaign and I laughed quite a bit throughout the movie, however because it is not quite able to stick the landing I am giving The Campaign 3 ½ popcorn buckets out of 5.
