The Campaign

Synopsis:  When dirt-bag billionaire businessmen, the Motch brothers (Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow) want a stooge in Congress to replace their current willing puppet Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) they settle on Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), the son of their old friend (Brian Cox) but Marty proves to be less tractable than they had wanted.

Will Rogers, professional cowboy, motion picture actor and humorist of the 1920s and 1930s famously quipped that "a fool and his money are soon elected”.  Needless to say, nothing has changed and, although the money is someone else’s, this is essentially the premiss of The Campaign.

Director Jay Roach was a producer on Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) and there is a comparable skewering here of the redneck mentality with its knee-jerk association of God, America and the right to bear arms (or arm bears, I can’t remember which).  Will Ferrell, who has done his fair share of spoofing George W, Bush, is a good choice to play the witless congressman. The film opens with a montage of him trying to inflame less and less probable audiences with the vote-garnering notion that they are “the backbone of America” and culminates with him winning the election after he posts footage on Youtube of himself porking his opponent’s wife, an act which boosts his approval rating. The progression sounds ludicrous but that is exactly what makes it work as satire. It’s so ridiculous that it actually feels plausible.  Ultimately, you can thank former Arkansas congressman and US President, Bill Clinton, for that.

As a straight comedy The Campaign works well too, with the contrast between Ferrell’s potty-mouthed, testosterone-driven buffoon, Cam, and Galifianakis’s amiable and effeminate Marty, and their respectively calculating and God-fearing families being the basis for a steady stream of jokes. It is no surprise that Roach directed Meet The Parents  and Meet The Fockers (but not the inferior Little Fockers). Whilst merciless in making fun of its characters there is also a palpable affection for them that is crucial to the film's appeal. The dialogue is often very blue and the spirit intentionally outrageous, but, unlike Sacha Baron Cohen’s recent effort, The Dictator, not in an offensive way.

All things must end and often comedies with escalating scenarios like this one collapse in the last lap by resorting to an all-in slapstick finale. The Campaign however manages to tie things up with a surprisingly winning ending, one which recalls the 1983 comedy classic, Trading Places, which as it starred Dan Ackroyd ( and, man, has he aged since then!!), can hardly be an accident.

The Campaign is not great comedy nor is it great satire and it will work just as well on DVD as on the big screen but if you’re up for a few chuckles, I’d be surprised if it doesn’t do the job.

 

 

Want more about this film?

    

Want something different?