Review: The Campaign (2012)

By Jason McKiernan
August 9, 2012 Reviews No Comments

Cast: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis
Director: Jay Roach
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy
Official Trailer: Here

The Campaign arrives in the grand tradition of Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and the one film to rule them all, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. This is not an outrageous-but-earthbound comedy like Bridesmaids or The Hangover. I’d even argue it’s less grounded than Ted, which at least dealt with real emotions. The Campaign is full-tilt absurdist comedy with no limit to its ridiculousness, and while it doesn’t touch the masterpiece level of Anchorman, it’s pretty damn funny…and shockingly, pretty damn insightful.

The Campaign is full-tilt absurdist comedy with no limit to its ridiculousness, and while it doesn’t touch the masterpiece level of Anchorman, it’s pretty damn funny…and shockingly, pretty damn insightful.

There is no more important societal convention that is conducted with such small-minded lunacy as politics – most specifically, American politics. In an age when the difference between Republican and Democrat, right and left, red and blue couldn’t be any starker, the tone and timbre of political rhetoric is that of lethal, inhumane threat slinging. Issues and ideals have taken a backseat to entrenched ideologies. We no longer debate the issues, we debate party lines. The current American political climate couldn’t be any more insane than it already is, which gives a movie like The Campaign free rein to mine the depths of sheer idiocy.

A backwater North Carolina congressional district becomes the centerpiece of a nationwide political prank war in the film, the stakes of which rise with increasing outrageousness as election day draws closer. The hysteric level of blind slogan-peddling and maniacal mud-slinging perpetrated by longtime Democratic incumbent Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) and unexpected Republican upstart Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) is hilarious because it’s so ludicrous…but is it, really? I doubt there will ever be a candidate who punches a baby and broadcasts a campaign commercial depicting sex with the opponent’s spouse, but we do live in a world where the American president is persistently labeled an African Muslim, so who’s to say what the next step will be.

Brady is the epitome of the Swingin’ Southern Democrat, though he has run unopposed for so long that his political acumen has been reduced to empty talking-point spewing and rote photo ops. Huggins, the oddball son of a rich, deep-south wingnut (Brian Cox), is viewed as faultless enough to run as the stooge candidate for the billionaire Motch brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd, perfectly devilish), whose right-wing agenda is driven by a desire to “insource” jobs to America. Insourcing basically means opening a sweatshop in the U.S. and bringing in immigrant Chinese employees to earn 50 cents per hour, thereby keeping pay rates low and cutting down on production costs. Goofy Marty is an awkward, effeminate Bible-thumper, but he’s far too green to even understand – let alone embrace – the neocon platform.

The over-the-top performances are great across the board. Ferrell is doing a version of his usual shtick, but if the material works, it never gets old.

Enter Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott), a steely Rove-ian conservative operative who puts Marty and his family through a highly politicized image makeover – replacing his twin Pugs with a Labrador and a Golden Retriever, stocking his house with rifles, hanging bald eagle paintings throughout his house). He also successfully transforms Marty into the ideal neocon soldier, indoctrinating him not with ideas, but talking points. And so the war commences, featuring debates in which the candidates trade empty platitudes to roaring crowds, and a series of increasingly dirty public pranks, each one shifting the polling numbers back and forth. The comedic impact of the pranks ratchets up throughout the film, culminating in a joke involving a certain infamous canine that I cannot spoil, only to say that it’s so unexpected and so incisive in cutting through our shallow, fickle entertainment culture that I was gasping for air.

The over-the-top performances are great across the board. Ferrell is doing a version of his usual shtick, but if the material works, it never gets old. Galifianakis is still a wildcard, able to surprise us with his commitment to relentless and endearing quirkiness, as well as the legitimate emotion he never fails to reach. The movie’s humor works as purposeful idiocy, but the jokes are sneakily edgy in a way that makes them relevant. The screenplay is as angry as it is silly.

And so it goes…politicking spins on the axes of money and popularity, and the electorate is dimwitted enough to keep fueling the fire. People continuously vote against their own interests for the sake of toeing party lines. The segment of the populace that understands the charade sort of has to play the game too, just so the raving morons don’t entirely take over the world. It’s kind of amazing that a willfully stupid movie like The Campaign could ignite such sentiments, but it simultaneously proves that there are brains behind this broad farce, and broad farce behind the American political machine.

68/100 ~ OKAY. The Campaign is zany, over-the-top, crude, and absurd…which makes it an accurate portrayal of the American political machine.
By Jason McKiernan
Awards Pundit & Senior Film Critic. I married into the cult of cinema at a very young age - I wasn't of legal marriage age, but I didn't care. It has taken advantage of me and abused me many times. Yet I stay in this marriage because I'm obsessed and consumed. Don't try to save me -- I'm too far gone.