The Campaign – Toothless Political Satire

** 1/2 out of *****

Running time: 86 minutes

MPAA rating: R for crude sexual content, language and brief nudity.

The Campaign is a toothless, only occasionally funny, run-of-the-mill frat-boy prank film. It settles for the easy laugh when it had the opportunity of going for the jugular. This is a big disappointment, as it was directed by the talented and experienced Jay Roach, whose work includes a couple of the past decade's best political films, Game Change and Recount.

The plot follows the re-election campaign of five-term Democratic congressman Cam Brady (Ferrell), who is running unopposed. A hack politician in the boy-next-door mold, Brady loves the lifestyle of his position but makes no worthwhile contribution to his party or his country. When a sexual dalliance exposes a sudden weakness in the polls, the Republican financial powerhouses, the evil Motch Brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Ackroyd) snap into action.

Seeing an opportunity for financial gain, the Motches make a deal to, literally, sell a town in Brady’s congressional district to the Chinese. All they need is a little political support. The brothers throw their vast wealth behind the campaign to unseat Brady, recruiting a charisma-deprived everyman, fledgling Republican Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) to take on the serial womanizer Democrat. To ensure Huggins’ success, the Motches place a slick, ruthless political operative, Wattley (Dylan McDermott) in charge of the clueless Huggins’ campaign.

This sounds like the stuff of pure political satire, harking back to Preston Sturges’ The Great McGinty, Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog and Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s South Park – Bigger, Longer and Uncut. And Roach would have seemed the perfect choice to direct such a picture.