The Campaign [Celluloid Hero]

The Campaign (2012)

Ferrell vs Galifianakis. Two great comedic actors who seem to love playing characters with little to no dignity, setting them up for absurd situations. "The Campaign" gave them both numerous opportunities to get into those situations, and both actors took advantage to go nuts.

Ferrell plays Cam Brady, a career politician who has run unopposed for his past four terms. He drinks, he cheats on his wife, he lies to the public. Everything he does and says is carefully planned out by his staff and advisors; basically, he's a perfect caricature of what everyone thinks of politicians.

Some behind-the-scenes dirty politics result in lobbyists putting their support behind a candidate they know will be easy to control. That candidate is Marty Huggins, played by Galifianakis. He's a rube, a sweet simple family man who owns two pugs. His father was a politician and it's been his life goal to live up to that, and is willing to change everything about himself to get there.

When you look further into most Ferrell movies, you really see that the plot is mostly irrelevant. Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers...these are all just loose plots designed to get from joke to joke. The thing is, with Will Ferrell that is generally acceptable. His forte is the rapid fire joke style, the despicable character actions, and everything that goes along with that. "The Campaign" was predictable in plot, but you don't really go into a Ferrell movie expecting Shakespeare.

"The Campaign" isn't as memorable/quotable as "Anchorman" or "Old School", but it's still worth a viewing.