Movie review: Politics is filthy and funny in 'The Campaign'

If we go by all the fear, loathing, and backstabbing in "The Campaign," then American Congressional pre-electoral proceedings aren’t so far removed from ours. 

 

Consider, Cam Brady’s (Will Ferrell) catchphrase: “America. Jesus. Freedom.” It’s vague, non-threatening, and sticks to your head like glue, with just enough black areas that your mind can color in with its own agenda. It’s also meaningless. Thing is, it’s unassailably effective, having catapulted Brady into four terms to a Congressional seat of North Carolina. And it looks like a fifth term in office is in the bag, as he runs his latest campaign unopposed. 

 

Director Jay Roach (who gave us the “Austin Powers” and the “Meet the Parents” movies), had a specific bone to pick with the political catchphrase. He’s opined in the movie’s production notes that “People are always reaching for catchy, meme ideas to carry the essence of who they are; loaded but largely meaningless phrases for the short attention span public, that we all seem to fall for, time and again.” 

 

Brady himself is the pitch perfect illustration of the worst kind of politician. He uses his political powers to further his own desires (we catch him with his mistress in their debut screw inside a portalet), he regularly uses lies and misdirection as a reflex to cover his lack of insight, and, worst of all, he’s so lazy he doesn’t even bother to cover up his mistakes.

 

Which leads Brady to the biggest mistake of his career: he leaves a hugely indecent and lewd message on a local family’s answering machine. To his defense, he did think it was his mistress’s phone. Predictably, the press have a field day with his recorded voice mail. But Brady commits a greater sin in thinking that it’ll just be business as usual with a routine public apology and cover-up. 

 

While it hasn’t been the first time Brady’s been caught with his pants down, the powers that lean on every politician in office—much less a Congressman of an American district—have now taken notice of his tabloid worthy faux pas and judged him too much of a loose cannon to serve their interests.   

 

Wade and Glenn Motch have a very big stake in that North Carolina district. They’re on the verge of selling acres of property to house their sweatshop factories, manned by Chinese immigrant laborers. Dan Akroyd and John Lithgow ably play the force behind the throne. Their Motch Brothers are interested in one thing only: profit, obscene amounts of it. They will back anybody with their considerable influence and resources who’s willing to further their ends.  

 

“They’re equal opportunity corruptors,” says Lithgow. “If one party doesn’t work they revert to the other, which is another of the film’s satiric points: ‘A plague on both your houses,’ a blanket condemnation at how money is really influencing everything.”

 

To attain their ends the Brothers hoist up Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), a peculiar, unattractive, and mustachioed tour operator from the suburban town of Hammond. All of a sudden, there are two Southerners vying for a seat in Congress. And what a fight it is. 

 

“[The Motches] think they can manipulate [Huggins],” says Aykroyd. “The Motches are people who believe they can arrange elections to be won or lost based upon their support and dirty tricks. They recruit candidates who may want to do good things but who are also ambitious and vulnerable.”

 

Although Huggins seems to be the unlikeliest candidate to win against the charismatic Brady, until they send in campaign manager par excellence Tim Wattley. Here’s where the race becomes interesting as the unscrupulous and laser-intense Wattley (played with flair and deadeye perfection by Dylan McDermott) gives Huggins the mother of extreme makeovers, overhauling everything from his dogs, his wardrobe, his family, his house, down to his sagging jowls (Botox is the answer). 

 

“Wattley is maybe the craziest person in the movie, in his own way,” McDermott acknowledges. “He couldn’t care less about this candidate or the one on the other side, or the communities they serve or what they stand for, or any of that.” 

 

True enough, now made into a trash-talking, ambush-ready, double-dealing, inveterate liar (in other words, a politician), Huggins’ popularity index rises at the same time that his ethics and morals take a sharp, downward spin. His catchphrase? “It’s a mess!”

 

Pushed against the wall, Brady begins to fight back with even dirtier tactics. He releases a bizarre commercial suggesting that Huggins has links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda because of his facial hair and seduces the opposition’s wife to gain a leg up. Still, as outrageous as the comedy here gets, the funniest thing about it is that everything’s right up there in terms of plausibility. 

 

Even the filmmakers admit that they had trouble outpacing the reality of an increasingly out-of-control, albeit entertaining news cycle. As both Ferrell and Galifianakis have producer credits in this movie, they made use of actual American political headlines rife with affairs, scandals, lies, hunting accidents, manufactured outrage over youthful indiscretions, as well as chest-pounding displays of national pride.

 

As Election Day nears, the two candidates try to discredit each other to the best of their abilities, culminating in events of shame, humiliation and injured bodies for both. Who wins it? I won’t spoil the fun and let you get there on your own. 

 

Going into this movie, we expected only a small amount of droll returns, but what we got was a transgressive, comedic exposition on how politics can be both filthy and funny in masterful hands. Ferrell and Galifianakis have not only chosen the right creative team for the job, they’ve made sure that what might turn out to be just a series of punch lines is also a punch in the gut commentary on the American electoral process. 

 

As you watch, ask yourself: Do politicians really do all these nasty things to get into office? The answer, of course is: hell yeah. If you’re paying attention, and have enough of a sense of history, then I promise you you’ll leave the theater in delighted tears. –KG, GMA News

 

“The Campaign” opens in Metro Manila theaters on Wednesday, August 29.  Photos courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures Karl R. De Mesa has been a journalist for the past 14 years. He is also the author of the horror books “Damaged People” and “News of the Shaman,” available in print and international e-book formats. His collected non-fiction is forthcoming very soon in “Report from the Abyss.” He plays guitar for the post-beat, drone metal band Gonzo Army. When stumped, he lets a stud-collared Snoopy push him around and call him names because it's better than having a polar bear do it. The views expressed in this article are solely his own.