I was a bit on the fence about seeing “The Campaign,” simply because it’s about a political campaign, and who wants to pay money to see more of that? But my trust in Will Ferrell and Zach Galifanakis won out, and I’m glad it did.
“The Campaign” is a smart movie, but also fairly breezy. In broad and effective terms, it illustrates the problems with American political campaigning. The powerful corporate lobby in North Carolina’s 14th federal Congressional district — the Mach Brothers, who plan to “insource” by bringing low-paying Chinese labor and sweatshops to the district — alternately controls each candidate.
But there’s no political statement here about Democrat or Republican, left or right. For the sake of a real-world touch, they both get a label: Ferrell’s Cam Brady is the four-term incumbent Democrat and Galifanakis’ Marty Huggins is the surprise Republican challenger. But there’s no sense of a party structure backing either candidate (which may be more realistic than I realize), and certainly neither one stands on a party platform.
(Your political leanings are unlikely to have an affect on your enjoyment of “The Campaign.” I’m a Johnson supporter, I attended the film with an Obama backer, and we both liked it.)
This is purely a war of down-and-dirty rhetoric and advertising, with many accusations reaching new heights of “unfounded.” Brady doesn’t so much give speeches as he gives endings to speeches: “America. Jesus. Freedom.” He also throws in a “Support our troops” when nothing else comes to mind. Huggins is slightly less crass, but even he earns attention at the first debate not by countering Brady’s slogans with substantive strategies to counter the district’s dearth of jobs, but merely by proving he can spout clichés just as eloquently. (Every voter at the debate hangs on every word; no one is looking for substance. So the voting public doesn’t get off the hook.)
While accurately parodying the state of modern politics, “The Campaign” isn’t one of those comedies where you acknowledge its intelligence but wish you could’ve laughed more (like “Wanderlust,” which I recently rented). I chuckled a lot during this movie, although it tended to be short giggles (for example, campaign manager Dylan McDermott’s propensity for popping up randomly) rather than a string of knockout scenes.
There are a few great over-the-top sequences, though. Intending to call his mistress, the crude Brady misdials and leaves a message on the answering machine of a devoutly religious family while they are eating dinner (Mike White cameos as the dad). Huggins, wanting to get all his ducks in a row for the campaign, asks his wife and two sons if they have any secrets they’d like to get out in the open. The confessions start mildly and then escalate.
“The Campaign” is an efficient comedy, clocking in at 85 minutes and not wasting a minute on a misfired joke or dull side plot. As such, while the ills of American politics in 2012 are serious, this movie actually feels like a refreshing escape more so than a gritty analysis of the problem.
