If you really liked Idiocracy, you’re going to love The Campaign. This political comedy is at the same time hilarious and utterly depressing. It cuts really deep and it does so from the first second. The movie opens with the following quote: War has rules. Mud wrestling has rules. Politics has no rules. I mean, how do you top that? Well, you top that with a scene where the campaign manager is preparing his candidate by making him remember the three most important things in American politics. America, Jesus, freedom, America, Jesus, freedom, America, Jesus, freedom!
They dismantle the whole “pandering to the crowd” and “politicians’ morality” concepts in mere minutes. Both Democrats and Republicans will find this movie funny. The Campaign has a way of making fun of every possible element of our current political system. And if you’re not in the mood for a politically motivated movie that’s supposed to be fun, that’s precisely the reason why you should watch The Campaign. It’s going to reset you to your factory settings with its honest, intelligent, and funny dissection of American politics.
We are all very disappointed in our politicians and the government, but in some places that feeling turns from disappointment to desperation, and from desperation comes satire, political satire. We already know that Will Ferrell does good Bush (giggity) and Zach is funny no matter what he does. The Campaign offers you a chance to see him in a more flattering light than in other movies where he’s mostly typecast. Jason Sudeikis, however, remained Jason Sudeikis. All of them exposed the political race for what it really is, a dirty-money-fueled shit race to the top of the shit mountain. I just hope they meet the shit demon from Dogma on top of it.
Cam Brady has it all, after four terms in Congress he’s about to run for the fifth time, unopposed. What he doesn’t know is that his benefactors, find him to be a bit of a liability so they find a guy to run against him, the son of a major political figure Marty Huggins. With no rules, the campaign is open to anything. What’s going to happen in the next few weeks is nothing short of outrageous.
The humor in the movie The Campaign is a bit toilety but I think it’s quite fitting considering what’s this movie about. It contrasts all the glamour and glitz of such an important position. However, there will be also a lot of funny dialogue and just plain old-school standard-issue comedy. After all, the director is Jay Roach, the man behind such comedies as Austin Powers and Meet the Parents. He was also the executive producer for Borat and Bruno. Speaking of that, did you know that the budget for this movie was a whopping $85 million?
Since the running time is only 85 minutes, this means they spent approximately 1 million dollars for one minute of footage. Still, the movie made over $105 million so it was eventually profitable. Finally, I do want to talk about something that’s not that obvious. And that’s the fact these insanely stupid pandering campaigns work. They fucking work! What does that tell you about the level of intelligence of the ordinary person in the US? And not just the US, the whole fucking world. So, we better have a laugh or two while we’re going down. Oh yeah, and vote Marty Huggins.
Director: Jay Roach
Writers: Chris Henchy, Shawn Harwell, Adam McKay
Cast: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, Dan Aykroyd, John Lithgow
Fun Facts: The Motch brothers are an obvious reference to the Koch brothers.
Rating:
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790886/
