A Close Call

The Campaign

DIRECTOR: Jay Roach

CAST: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, Brian Cox

Rating: **1/2

A parody on the way American elections are run at a time when it is playing out in the US, in the hands of Ferrell and Galifianakis, should be an interesting proposition. What it ends up being is a parody of that parody.

The Campaign touches on all that comes into it — from religion and family values to Botox injections and facial hair. The especially hilarious part involves Ferrell's four-time Congressman Cam Brady trying to recite the "Lord's Prayer" at a poll debate. That follows Galifianakis's Marty Huggins saying his moustache isn't inspired by Saddam Hussein, as alleged by Brady, but "the biggest American of them all" — Jesus Christ — to loud applause.

Big business houses have propped up Huggins, who is portly, uninteresting and bereft of ideas except good intentions, till a savvy media manager takes over his campaign. It now turns into a slugfest and a sex tape involving Brady and Huggins's wife eventually makes it to TV.

However, in the way the film finally plays out, it ends up being neither a comment on the dirtiness of politics nor the goodness of a few. It can't resist taking potshots at anyone, particularly the easiest targets, and that's just not done in a film where "honesty" is the winner.

ALSO READ

The Enemy Strikes From Within

Review: 'Go Goa Gone' aims to make us laugh

The Storytellers’ Tales

Review Shootout At Wadala: Gives us a bunch of gangsters and cops