The Campaign

The Campaign is almost as ridiculous and lowest-common-denominator focused as real life politics. Yes, a satire of America’s democratic process should be filled with brainless gags. But the goal should be for the tomfoolery to be consistently funny as well as over-the-top. The Campaign loses sight of the funny and ends up being staggeringly boring by bombarding you with one stupid gag after another with no break to come up for air. Sure it has the random funny bit to wake a chuckle or an "awww” out of you but with the sheer volume of jokes thrown out in the film there are bound to be a few hits amongst all the misses.

Will Ferrell plays the philandering husband and multi-term North Carolina congressman, Cam Brady. Two deep-pocketed CEOs, the Motch brothers, played by Dan Akroyd and John Lithgow, decide to put up a rival/puppet candidate against Brady in the 2012 election. They chose the lisp-talking mustachioed Marty Huggins, played by Zach Galifianakis. Both candidates are asses who find ways to make bigger asses of themselves and each other than they already are. The thing about Huggins is that he is an ass with a heart of gold and two adorable pugs who steal every scene they are in. So, if I had to vote for the lesser of the two evils then I would vote for him almost solely because of the pugs. Aside from the cute and cuddly pugs, only two other things make this movie somewhat bearable. The first is Dylan McDermott who played the ruthless campaign manager Tim Wattley. He was subtle and he was the most amusing character in the film. The second was seeing Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews deliver the news of the candidates high-jinks, from the baby punching and the Uggie punching to the sex tape being used as a campaign commercial. I could go on, but I am already trying to forget the hour and a half of my life that I lost to this film.