In director Jay Roach’s (Meet the Parents) new comedy, The Campaign, Will Ferrell plays a North Carolina congressman who’s so beloved, he’s won his last few terms by running unopposed. But, when a political scandal makes him look vulnerable, two billionaires (Dan Aykroyd & John Lithgow) take it upon themselves to fund a puppet candidate to push Ferrell out of office and cater to their cheap-labor-loving and environmental-restrictions-hating agenda. Said candidate is the naïve and strange Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis). Doesn’t that sound like a premise that’s bound to be full of hilarity? Well, it is, sort of.
The Campaign crams a lot of laughs into its run time, but they’re the small sort of laughs that sneak up on you, the kind that come from a random bit of weirdness happening in the background, or a clever aside. What this movie doesn’t have is any gut busting comedic set pieces, the type of thing–like the food poisoning scene in Bridesmaids–that’s going to have audiences coming out of the theater buzzing and feeling like they got their money’s worth. Most of the effective humor here is coming from Galifianakis, and it’s the absurdist, random sort of stuff that he built his career on, but it’s more low-key and subtle than the stuff from The Hangover that made him super-famous. As a matter of fact, some of his bits are so strange and particular, I’m not certain everyone in the crowd will even notice them. But, if you’re a fan of the man from way back, then there should be plenty to please you here.
Less funny is Farrell as the well-quaffed incumbent. He’s playing the pompous jerk, which worked well for him in Anchorman, but unlike his character in Anchorman, he’s not showing any of the vulnerability that made his bluster there endearing. Instead, Ferrell goes over the top with the nihilism and the vulgarity, and other than a couple clumsy attempts at shoe-horning some sentiment into his backstory, his character plays like a pretty straight villain. If both characters had been equally likable, and each of their increasingly inappropriate actions had been coming from more relatable places, or even if the film had given its characters’ shocking behavior edge by taking a more hardline approach to which side of the political fence it was coming down on, its hard to imagine that The Campaign wouldn’t have been a lot funnier. But, as is, the story and the gags come off as being fairly dry and one note (other than the skewering of the Koch brothers, which is thorough, pulls no punches, and makes the rest of the political satire feel tame by comparison), and they’re the sort of things you’ll probably appreciate more by watching in your living room, after only paying a couple of bucks.
