Patti Perret / Warner Bros. Pictures
Zach Galifianakis as Marty Huggins and Will Ferrell as Cam Brady in "The Campaign."
By Michael Rechtshaffen , The Hollywood Reporter
REVIEW: Call it?"Meet the Candidates." Considering he struck comedy gold with?"Meet the Parents"/"Meet the Fockers"?before successfully entering the cable political arena with?"Recount"?and?"Game Change," director?Jay Roach?would seem to have been the ideal guy to be steering?"The Campaign."
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But while leads?Will Ferrell?and?Zach Galifianakis?are amusingly on point as a pair of mud-slinging contenders for Congress, the platform is a wobbly political satire that flip-flops chaotically between clever and crass, never finding a sturdy comedic footing.
With its election-year timing and the scarcity of R-rated fare that at least looks like?it should be fun, the Warner Bros. release might encounter some initial traction, but, clocking in at a tellingly insubstantial 85 minutes, it likely will see sharply falling approval ratings.
Ferrell?s Cam Brady is a slick, incumbent Republican congressman who?s fully expecting the upcoming election to be yet another cakewalk, given that he?s running unopposed.
But when Brady dials a wrong number, leaving a crude message meant for his mistress, a pair of corrupt power brokers called the Motch brothers (John Lithgow?and?Dan Aykroyd) see an opportunity in the widely exposed gaffe.
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Looking to get the necessary tax-exempt backing for their insourcing scheme -- importing cheap Chinese labor to work in their North Carolina factories -- they find a patsy in the form of naive tourism center director Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) to run against Brady on a family values manifesto.
Taken under the wing of Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott), a highly disciplined, black op of a campaign manager, Huggins is transformed from fey family black sheep to tough-talking, viable opponent, setting the stage for a no-holds-barred, mean-spirited race.
On paper, given the players and the potent milieu,?"The Campaign"?should have been a slam dunk.
Unfortunately, to borrow Huggins? campaign slogan, ?It?s a mess!?
The script, by?Chris Henchy?("The Other Guys") and?Shawn Harwell, from a story also contributed by longtime Ferrell collaborator?Adam McKay, is lazily hit-and-miss, neither sufficiently sharp nor substantial to bring anything fresh or consistently entertaining to the political satire genre.
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While it probably would have made a terrific series of Funny or Die shorts, the film comes up notably short as a feature proposition with an abrupt ending that smacks of last-minute cutting.
And though Ferrell and Galifianakis make for lively opponents, it?s not like we haven?t seen them play these guys before.
Will?s Cam has more than a bit of the smugness of his famed?George W. Bush?impersonation (with a smarmy?John Edwards-type overlay), while Zach?s Marty is a very slight variation on his twin brother?Seth Galifianakis?character he often has portrayed in short segments and onstage.
Providing reliable if under-utilized support are?Sarah Baker?as Huggins? sweet, shoved-to-the-sidelines wife, Mitzi, and?Jason Sudeikis?as Brady?s long-suffering campaign manager.
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