MOVIE REVIEW: The Campaign

This movie review for "The Campaign" was written by guest blogger Liz Parker...

With two popular comedians headlining The Campaign and a hilarious trailer, it looked like it was going to be a funny movie. Luckily, the actual film didn't disappoint, and although the laughs start to become less frequent near the end, the first 2/3 of the movie had the audience in stitches almost the entire time.

Cam Brady (Will Ferrell, Everything Must Go) is running unopposed in North Carolina for his seat in Congress, until two prominent businessmen, the Motch brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd), decide they want someone to give Brady a run for his money. They propose Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover Part II), whose father had been a politician as well. The Motch brothers have big plans for the district, and they want someone running the district who they can easily influence. Cam Brady is not used to having competition, and he decides to give it his all in order to beat Huggins, a strange man with a strange family, so that he can maintain his place in Congress.

I'd like to know if any of The Campaign was improvised, because Ferrell and Galifianakis had great chemistry together. Although Galifianakis played a character similar to the ones he played in Due Date and the two Hangover movies, he made Marty Huggins his own, and he had the advantage of the fierce Dylan McDermott (TV's American Horror Story) as his campaign manager, at least at first; Ferrell's campaign manager was the hilarious Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses), at least until Ferrell - SPOILER - fires him.

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Yes, see this film. Although the laughs peter out by the end, the first half or 2/3 of it is quite hilarious, and for some reason there are also a lot of Price is Right references which I loved too. There are obvious allusions to real events here - in one scene, Galifianakis's character shoots Ferrell's character on a "hunting trip" (think the Dick Cheney incident) and his popularity in the polls actually goes up - and a lot of poking fun at the ridiculousness of politicians and politics overall. I didn't completely buy the ending, where Ferrell's character suddenly has morals, but the film is definitely worth seeing for the laughs and jokes sprinkled throughout.

The Campaign is in theaters today, August 10th, and is rated R with a runtime of 85 minutes. 3 stars out of 5.

Click here if the movie trailer for "The Campaign" is not shown


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Liz Parker is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan. She currently works as an Assistant Medical Editor for a pathology website. Visit her at her movie blog Yes/No Films