IT'S A MESS: a review of "The Campaign"

"THE CAMPAIGN"

Story by Adam McKay & Chris Henchy & Shawn Harwell

Screenplay Written by Chris Henchy & Shawn Harwell

Directed by Jay Roach

* 1/2 (one and a half stars)

By this point in 2012, I am more than certain that we are all, regardless of our political affiliations and individualistic world views, fatigued with the current election cycle. For me, I have to admit to having been increasingly filled with mounting anxiety as election day approaches and that inner tension is something that I am more than ready to release...and hopefully not trade my current tension for just different tension. There are points where we all have to unplug, take a step backwards and breathe of course. And most of all, we could all use some big laughs. Most unfortunately, Director Jay Roach's political satire "The Campaign" starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as dueling North Carolina congressional candidates was not that movie as it just did not provide the laughs I needed by a long shot. How pathetic this is considering that we are living within an era where modern day politics, from the candidates, the 24 hour cable news industry, the consequences of the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision and even the apathy, complacency and surprising ease with which the wind of public opinion will shift, are truly screaming for brutal satirical comedy. Ferrell, Galifianakis and Roach all know better and have all performed better. So, why didn't they just do better?!

Will Ferrell stars as incumbent Democratic congressman Cam Brady, currently running unopposed for his fifth term. Yet, his hard charging ways may have finally caught up to him as a highly sexually explicit phone call is recorded on the very wrong answering machine and thus, the recording is released to the media, making his polling numbers plunge. Seizing upon an opportunity, the Koch brother stand-ins, corrupt billionaire businessmen, Glen and Wade Motch (John Lithgow and Dan Akyroyd) decide to enter their own candidate on the Republican ticket as a challenger to Brady and to subversively make illegal profits from their covert dealings with Chinese companies.

The Motch Brothers reach out to one of their associates, Raymond Huggins (Brian Cox) to gain his assistance in convincing his son, the mild mannered, effeminate, family man and Hammond, North Carolina historical tour guide Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), to be the candidate to run against Brady. Marty excitedly agrees and is then thrust into the unforgiving world of politics with all manner of mud slinging, attack advertisements, rigorous and uninformative debates and most certainly, an attraction to the media attention, and the potential glory that arrives with attained power.

Of course, this plot structure, which allows Ferrell and Galifianakis to just go at each other mercilessly, is ripe for political comedy and satire that could have stood shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Barry Levinson's masterful "Wag The Dog" (1997) and Warren Beatty's dark, and extremely risky high wire act, "Bulworth" (1998). For my tastes, those two films are the ones that have set the bar for political satire during the last twenty years and to date, they have been unmatched in terms of their pitch perfect tonality which grounded the politics and characters in reality while also unrepentantly depicting the "through the looking glass" absurdity of our political landscape. What bothered me so tremendously about "The Campaign" is that any sense of tonality was hurled through the cinematic window and what we are left with is a comedy that is truly all over the map and nearly drowns itself in a morass of vulgarities that exist in the place of any sense of political flame throwing so as not to really offend the audience.     

Look, I will concede that both Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis perform their parts well, seem to be fully invested and are giving their roles all they got. Ferrell's Cam Brady seems to be cut from the same cloth as his celebrated George W. Bush impersonation as well as his beloved 1970s era newscaster Ron Burgundy from "Anchorman" (2004). This tactic actually does serve Ferrell well in his performance as Cam Brady because this character suffers from the same dangerously inflated sense of ego and bluster that always threatens to upend him. While this is a most familiar persona for Ferrell, it still works because of whom he is lampooning, a John Edwards type stupidly convinced of his own sexual irresistibility and even moreso, his seemingly impenetrable political status.

As for Galifianakis, I actually thought that his work as Marty Huggins was perhaps his most successful on screen performance that I have seen from him so far. Galifianakis is a defiantly idiosyncratic performer whom I felt has not been utilized very well by filmmakers as his comedic style is so oddball, he is difficult to really pin down and know exactly where he is coming from. But, for "The Campaign," Galifianakis channels all of his energy to create a convincing character and give him an emotional gravity that at last, made a Galifianakis creation feel as if it is off the world in which we all live.

Yes, I did laugh here and there during "The Campaign," and quite loudly as well. Jay Roach did seem to occasionally tap into areas of our current political climate that feel to exist upon the sheer plane of insanity. The film plays smartly when riffing on the media spin cycle or the mass ignorance that occurs when it comes to the more than questionable antics of candidates and even more pointedly about how we, as a society, are entirely complicit in how these candidates are able to get away with whatever shenanigans they either stumble into or perpetually cause. Here is where Roach had a grand opportunity to take "The Campaign" into the satirical stratosphere but he wasted it all by painting nearly every moment with the broadest brush possible as forcefully as possible making everything feel as realistic as a cartoon...and not a very good cartoon at that. It just pained me that "The Campaign" never attempted to show any real subtlety, cleverness or even any real carnivorousness teeth. It was just another R rated comedy that struck its comedy right down the middle of the market tested road and again, substituting vulgarity for anything truly compelling or potentially politically sharp and even offensive. 

Dear readers, as I have stated many times before, I do not offend easily. But I have to say that in regards to "The Campaign," vulgarity is not comedic sharpness and I just grew so tired with all of the intensely scatological humor and obsessions with gastrointestinal turns of phrases that it all felt to be so wrong. Like several R rated comedies in recent years, "The Campaign" has all of the notes but does not know how to play the music to keep the politics and comedy consistent with each other. And it just felt so obvious to me that in lieu of forcing audiences to really be confronted with and think about our political structure and the way that it operates in the 21st century for fear of offending anyone, let's just throw a barrage of dirty words at them to giggle at and be "offended" by.

By contrast, the HBO series "Veep," starring Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as an unhinged Vice President has mastered the tonality of teeth baring political satire merged with foul language and R rated situations beautifully. This particular creative comedic marriage has been accomplished before and can be again and such a shame for the failure of "The Campaign" as Jay Roach is a director who has shown such sharpness with the political satires he has helmed for HBO, most recently his film "Game Change," which details the 2008 Presidential campaign of John McCain and how it was all derailed by Sarah Palin (a smashing Julianne Moore). As I think about that movie, I am hit by the bizarre state we seem to exist inside of at this point in time regarding the tenor of films, audiences, and the fact that some of the more nuanced and challenging material can be seen on cable television rather than the movie theaters.

Everything in "The Campaign" felt to be too easy, too simplistic, too facile and too obvious when it needed to be tougher, more uncompromising, more uncomfortable and hey, much, much more savage!! I have seen Will Ferrell's "You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush," his terrific (nearly) one man show that wonderfully lampooned the former President while also striking a certain humane balance. I think that Zach Galifianakis has shown his true comedic gifts during his "Saturday Night Live" monologues which have been more consistently funny that any movie in which he has appeared. Ferrell, Galifianakis and Roach are three very smart and talented individuals and I just found it to be so curious that they could not see how much they are just spinning their wheels with "The Campaign." Or maybe they could...

"The Campaign" often feels like a beast with two heads in regards to the kind of comedy it wants to attack its subject with. Maybe Roach, Ferrell and Galifianakis did indeed want to create something less tame and more brutal and maybe the studio kept veering them back to an area where they felt that their bottom line would not be adversely affected. We'll never know but that is indeed what "The Campaign" felt like, a comedy that wanted to stretch its wings but found itself bashing and thrashing itself around a much too confined comedic box.

And besides, how can you open your movie with a 1988 quotation from then Presidential candidate Ross Perot about politics having no discernible rules and then have your full movie play everything so safely?