Movie Review #1 The Campaign

Hi,

So here is my first review and its "The Campaign" starring Will Ferrel and Zach Galifianakis. While I am a big fan of both of these actors and comedians, I have to say that I hoped for more from this film. Ferrel basically plays an aggressive, adulterous version of Ricki Bobby and Galifianakis plays a sweet, family man version of Alan from "The Hangover."

    While this film did produce some laughter, there were virtually no side busting scenes that made you hurt from laughing so hard. I equate this film closer to something like "Semi-Pro", decent but not all that memorable.

Ferrel, Cam Brady, plays an incumbent Democratic Congressman from a small North Carolina district who enjoyed his seat in Congress and expected to remain in D.C. as he was running unopposed. Brady is a lose cannon congressman lacking morals and common sense.  His world is shattered, however, when Galifanakis, Marty Huggins, announces his candidacy for office.  Huggins is a disappointing son of a former campaign manger, Brian Cox, who just wants to enter politics and please his stern father.

John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd (who looks quite old) play the Motch brothers who support Huggins' candidacy as part of their evil plan to "insource" workers from China into the North Carolina district to further drive down costs. While these characters are a parody of the Kotch Brothers, to me they seemed similar to the Duke brothers from "Trading Places" albeit not given as much screen time and not as funny. They send Tim Wattley, Dylan McDermott, to be the campaign manager for Huggins campaign -and make him "not suck."

 After the first act the film progresses to where each candidate tries to ruin the other, or ends up ruining themselves in the process. Most of the films best moments, however, are displayed in the various trailers, which I find very annoying. I did enjoy the campaign managers though, McDermott and Sudeikis. They both play the "straight men" to the crazyiness of the two headliners and are able to steal a few scenes.

While both Galifianakis and Ferrel provide some of the characteristics that made them famous, for some reason it just isn't as enthralling this time around. I felt that this film had potential to provide a satirical look at contemporary political campaigns. While they did try to include some commentary, I think everyone knows at this point that silly catchphrases and talking points dominate debates and money controls everything. The end of the Dictator (2012) had a much more poignant and hysterical criticism of American politics and culture.

So in review, I thought it was worth seeing, and I would suggest others to go see it. I was expecting more, though, since you would think having these two together would be comedy magic, not a so-so movie.

That_Guy  

2/4 Buttons.