Review of The Campaign (2012) by Stevenf — 27 Mar 2013

There are plenty of silly but crude laughs in The Campaign to make it a decent attempt at seeing a funnier side of the election year, but it falls into many traps that make it stopped it from being so much better.

Will Ferrell stars as Cam Brady, an undefeated and unchallenged Congressman, but after leaving an explicit voicemail, he finally faces competition in the form of Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), a simple-minded yet friendly tour guide, who is strategically placed by the corrupt Motch brothers, who are played and underused greatly by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd.

The funnier moments are at the beginning of the film, the best part of the film has to be when Marty's family decides to let slip secrets to Marty by his request in case it ruins his election, the answers are crude, but are side-splittingly funny.

What the ongoing problem was in the film was its corrupt sub-plot, something this film could have done without entirely, as it had its own standing stone and little jabs at the current system that would have made the film better.

The two leads are on fine form though, Galifianakis in particular, who has created a very different sort of character, but Ferrell's character seems too toned down for the actor, whose ridiculous yet quite ingenious turn in Step Brothers was in a better good tone.

Dylan McDermott also makes quite a comedic turn as the corrupt campaign manger, trying to spruce up and bring Huggins away from his current personality and making him compete and challenge Brady on a verbal and marketing scale.

The big flaw in the film was that it never lets these two leads free, why couldn't they properly trash talk to each other, improvised and unhinged, instead we get a predictable plot with very little to laugh at after the first 30 mins. While there are a few gags throughout the entire film, they just seem too bland for these actors to put across.

But ultimately, this is a decent attempt to poke fun at the current political climate by bringing in two powerhouse comedy actors and letting them have at it, its just a shame that it wasn't consistent.