In an attempt to grab some big bucks throughout election season, Hollywood has spit out an obligatory comedy casting two of their most popular actors as candidates fighting for office, and I would bet that you people fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Yeah, you know, this movie is actually pretty great.
The premise is a lot more complex than the trailers make it out to be. Will Ferrel plays Cam Brady, a politician in congress who, at the beginning of the film, is about to accept victory by simply signing up to run, as he has no competition for 2012. Motch Corporation (one of the heads of this corporation is Dan Ackroyd, by the way) seizes the opportunity to pick a candidate to spar with him, in an attempt to get him on-board with political action that would benefit their business. The choose Marty Huggins, played by Zach Galifianakis.
The catch that I wasn't fully expecting is that this movie is completely ridiculous. I thought that the accidental punch of a baby on Cam Brady's part was pretty ridiculous when I saw it in the previews, but the movie goes much further than that; not just with that scene, which is expand upon in the actual movie to make it much more brutal, but with a myriad of other bits. It's a movie that grabbed my attention and didn't let go until it finished, because I was quite intrigued in how far the movie is willing to go. It's hilarious.
Considering how far a lot of these jokes go, and how utterly bonkers the stakes become, this movie can be seen as nothing more than a comedic exaggeration of American politics. I had to do a double take on Motch's evil plan: they're not "creating jobs" as a ploy to outsource jobs to China, they're doing it as a ploy for China to literally buy a part of our country, and host child labor there for fifty-cents an hour. The movie smartly jumps on other funny or strange things in our politics, such as our dogmatic fear of Marxism and terrorism, and sensationalist political ads. There's a nice touch of commentary, and it's entertaining.
The performances all-around in this film are fantastic. Will Ferrel is great at playing dunces, and his performance as the sex-crazed and selfish Cam Brady is no exception. Zach Galifianakis plays up his well-intentioned but nutty and weak character well. The supporting cast also does a fine job, including performances playing Marty's reserved and boring wife, as well as Motch's youthful yet soulless campaign manager. The icing on the casting cake is in the form of appearances from political commentators like Bill Maher and Pierce Morgan.
A disappointment, though, is that the movie plays it safe in terms of the positions the two candidates espouse. Marty is the Republican, and the movie makes sure you know by making him a humorously flamboyant stereotype of Christian-fundamentalists, and Cam is the Democrat, with an eery similarity to Anthony Wiener, but the movie doesn't do much beyond that. They both just seem to be fighting mainly for jobs, which serves the central plot of the evil "job-creating" corporation, but it's is also a bit disorienting and annoying that they play up these stereotypes but do next to nothing with them. A movie like this doesn't have to have commentary on the two parties or mainstream political views, but it feels missing because the set-up is all here.
It's a very good movie as a whole, though. Performances by not just Will Ferrel and Zach Galifianakis but also the supporting cast, matched with this movie's ridiculous plot spoofing our political system, make this movie hilarious. The safe move on the film's part of avoiding commentary on actual political positions is lame, but I didn't notice anything else about the movie that is particularly weak. It's a fun, dumb ride that just may bring some attention to America's often goofy politics.
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