Review: The Campaign

Will Ferrell stars as swaggering idiot Democrat congressman Cam Brady, who has stood unopposed for years, until a public embarrassment leads to a drop in the polls and the two Conservative powerbrokers backing Brady, The Koch...er...Motch brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) decide to put their support behind a new candidate in the upcoming North Carolina elections instead. Their choice? Naive, somewhat thick-headed black sheep Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), a Christian who wears knitted jumpers, comes from a rich family, has a couple of cute pugs, and is generally an embarrassment to his father (Brian Cox) and douchebag brother (Josh Lawson, of all people). Needless to say, ruthless campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) has a lot of work to do with dorky, soft-hearted Marty. He even replaces the pugs with ‘American dogs’. Wait, which one’s the Democrat again? Anyway, let the mud-slinging begin, as for the first time ever, Brady has a fight on his hands and he doesn’t much like it. Jason Sudeikis plays Cam’s long-suffering campaign manager.

 

Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, and director Jay Roach are all apparently very talented men in the field of comedy. But for me, whilst Ferrell (“Anchorman”, “Stranger Than Fiction”, “The Other Guys”) and Roach (“Meet the Parents”, “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”) are capable of delivering the laughs, Ferrell in particular can be wildly hit-and-miss. Meanwhile, I find Zach Galifianakis not only completely unfunny, but he has a screen presence something in the vicinity of one of those creepy dudes who collects toenail clippings and spends a lot of time in the torture chamber he has fashioned his basement into. He’s creepy, unpleasant, and weird- the kind of guy you’d walk to the other side of the street just to get away from, that’s if he ever ventured outside of his creepy basement. Sudeikis, meanwhile, may have the good looks of Chevy Chase to go with his “SNL” cred, but not only have I never laughed at him on “SNL”, I don’t find him especially interesting, either. Combine this with some uninspiring trailers and I went into this 2012 comedy not expecting a whole lot. It turns out that the film is far, far worse than I had even anticipated. Oh dear, where do I begin?

 

It’s just not funny. Usually Ferrell’s films have at least some laughs, even if they aren’t sustained for the entire running length. “Blades of Glory”, for instance, is really funny stuff in parts, and even “Talladega Nights” had its moments (We’ll forget about “A Night at the Roxbury” and “Semi-Pro”). But there aren’t any laughs at all in this one, aside from one cute line from Ferrell: ‘I’m Cam Brady and I seductively approve this message’, and even that one comes from one of the dumbest ideas in the entire film (a candidate who purposely films a sex tape of himself and the other candidate’s wife just to embarrass his opponent? Really?). There’s been a lot of bad films in 2012 (and yet, more 3 ½ star ones than in 2011), and this is definitely one of the worst. Any film that pokes fun at the expense of beautiful, adorable pugs is a film that immediately makes an enemy of me. Pugs are awesome, and if you don’t like pugs...you suck at life.

 

This is lazy, bad “SNL” sketch stuff founded off a not very interesting or comedic idea, and not one worthy of a 90 minute film. There is nothing new here. To Americans, a politician being taught how to act butch, and two pollies trying to one-up each other with a masculine handshake might be biting satire. In Australia, it’s just Liberal (That’s the Conservative party to you non-Aussies. I know...) MP Christopher Pyne being Christopher Pyne, and Mark Latham and John Howard’s awkward handshake. There’s no cleverness to it. It’s not humorous, it’s just sad and pathetic. Is this honestly the best they could do? The smear campaigns aren’t funny, mostly because they’re not far removed from reality, and the tone the film is obviously going for the rest of the time is absurdist, not “Wag the Dog”-esque biting commentary. The scene where Brady struggles to recite the Lord’s prayer in particular, is embarrassingly moronic. I’m an atheist and even I could’ve made a better fist of it than this idiot, and he does such an unrealistically bad botch of it that it’s not actually funny because there’s zero truth in it. So no matter what approach the film takes, it fouls it up.

 

Meanwhile, Dylan McDermott (playing a character named Tim Wattley- no, not that Tim Wattley) is convincing in a film that throws conviction out the window immediately. Does he know he’s in a comedy? Then again, no one else seems to know either. How the hell did this get the go-ahead for a release? No laughs, just a lot of swearing, because everyone involved is a stupid man-child.

 

Why is Galifianakis supposed to be funny here? He appears to be trying for Ned Flanders, but just comes across as ‘stranger danger’, with Ferrell doing his dumb-arse, mediocre George Dubya Bush impersonation mixed with Ron Burgandy which combines to make the supposedly Democrat Brady seem awfully Republican. I mean, what credible Democrat would proclaim to be for ‘America, Jesus, and Freedom’? What the hell? For his part, Jason Sudeikis is pretty much doing a boring version of his already not-very impressive Mitt Romney, and the film forgets about his character (essentially the only person in the film with both intelligence and a conscience) for great stretches anyway. John Lithgow is too good an actor for this crap, Dan Aykroyd...well, he lost all credibility by the time he directed and starred in 1991’s “Nothing But Trouble” and hasn’t really looked back. I guess it’s nice that Aussie comedian/actor Josh Lawson has managed to find a role in a Will Ferrell comedy, but his role is pretty boring and forgettable. That may not be such a bad thing given how terrible the film is overall.

 

Getting back to Mr. Galifianakis, however. If you don’t believe he’s a severe casting mistake in this, just look at the scene where he convinces Ferrell’s son that his dad doesn’t love him and he should be his daddy instead. It’s set on a park bench, even. The only thing missing is Galifianakis wearing a trench coat. Creepy beyond belief and not intentional, either. Then again, this is the same film that thinks casting Karen Maruyama as an Asian maid who talks like Mammy from “Gone With the Wind” is the height of hilarity. It’s not, it’s just an odd bit that has no connection to anything else in the film. Meanwhile, what in the hell is with John Goodman’s walk-on? That was a complete waste of time. Oh, and Mr. Roach...punching babies isn’t new. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that in a comedy before...and it was funnier.

 

A terrible excuse for a comedy, and frankly a terrible excuse for a feature film of any genre. The screenplay is by Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy, the latter of whom co-wrote Ferrell’s genuinely funny “The Other Guys”, so I guess I’ll leave most of the blame here to the ‘other guy’, because even Roach has had some previous cred with political films, such as the interesting Palin-McCain film “Game Change”.

 

Rating: D