Movie Review 2: The Campaign

            In this week’s movie review, I review the new comedy movie, The Campaign, directed by Jay Roach (the Austin Power Movies and Dinner for Schmucks) and starring the old comedy king, Will Ferrell, and the current reigning king, Zack Galifianakis.

(short plot summary as always) Will Ferrell plays a North Carolina congressman who is currently serving his fifth consecutive term. Because no one runs against him, he believes that he will win a sixth term, however when news of his affair becomes public, two wealthy CEOs’ plot to support a candidate to gain influence over Brady’s district. They choose local tourism director Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) who, at first, seems to be the most unlikely choice at beating Brady but soon becomes a candidate that makes a race out of the election.

When I saw the first trailer, I thought that this movie would be different than most of Ferrell and Galifianiakis’ previous movies (i.e. Step Brothers and Due Date). Now don’t get me wrong, those movies are great and really funny but when push comes to shove they’re nothing more than simple humor. I thought The Campaign would be a good (and funny) satire of the state of politics and elections in this country.

In one simple first-grade sentence; I was wrong.

Now just because I was wrong doesn’t mean the movie wasn’t funny. And in fact there are a few moments that properly satirize US elections. There is one particular scene where Huggins’ campaign manager (Dylan McDermott, pictured above with Galifianakis)  converts him, his home, and his family into that of a typical American politician. To do so, he decorates his house with guns, taxidermy (antlers and deer heads for example), and replacing his pugs with two labs (one named Sarge) to name a few changes. However the movie’s problem is it’s comedy is the classic example of “hit and miss.” There are scenes where I was laughing like crazy and others where I was ‘cringing.’ One problem the movie has is that it repeats ‘gags’ multiple times throughout the move so while it’s funny the first time it happens it gets less and less amusing as it is repeated. One example is the baby punch scene which is slightly altered later in the movie and ‘no-where-near’ as funny (well not as funny in my opinion since there were people laughing at it). That being said, the movie is still funny and the funny scenes are well worth waiting through the bad ones.

In summary, Ferrell and Galifianiakis make a good comedy team and while there are some scenes they will not make you laugh, there are plenty more that will make you laugh. This is definitely a good comedy, just don’t expect Hangover 3 or Step Brothers 2.

6/10

P.S.-look forward to my review of the new Bourne movie in the coming days.