The Campaign: the new political comedy

I went to Emeryville today with my family, we went to Fuddrucker's, Barnes and Noble, a sports shoppe, and AMC theaters. We saw Brave, we took a quick peek into the IMAX theater for Batman for a few minutes, and the short experience was amazing, and I saw The Campaign.

The Campaign:
All I can say is, it's hilarious. It's just as funny as The Hangover and Horrible Bosses. It's also better than 21 Jump Street and The Change-Up. The plot follows a congressman, Cam Brady, a Bush-style idiot who has affairs, does drugs, and drinks heavily. He passes off as a classic American family man, and has gone unopposed for years as the congressman of North Carolina. That is until the corrupt corporation owners the Motch Brothers decide to make more profit by hiring an opposing force, even though they already basically own Brady, too. In comes the somewhat odd, but kind and harmless, Christian family man Marty Huggins, wo loves his wife, kids, Jesus, and his two cute pugs. When he becomes a congressional candidate, a shady and secret agent-like campaign manager changes his entire life, and when the fued begins, their lives go straight to shit. Will Ferrell is hilarious as the George Bush-like character of Cam Brady, who is the typical corrupt politican: he has sex with every woman who flashes him a smile, he is owned by a giant company, and does dirty deals to win the election. ("Win at all costs" is his motto.) Zach Galifianakis is fantastic as the weird but nice Marty Huggins. He's an odd guy, but he's nice enough. He's the exact opposite of Brady: his wife actually loves him, (Brady's wife is a trophy wife who hates him, leaves him if his campaign numbers aren't good enough, and doesn't give a shit if he has affairs), he's honest and nice, he actually cares about voters, and he won't be bought by a mega-corporation. Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses, SNL, Hall Pass) plays Brady's campaign manager Mitch, he's a good guy, but does do bad things to get Brady to win. Dylan McDermott (American Horror Story, and star of the upcoming Perks of Being a Wallflower) plays Tim Wattley, who is appointed as Huggins' campaign manager. He just appears in weird places, and follows Huggins around like a shadow. He ends up running his life, and just moving in with him. Brian Cox plays Marty's father, Raymond. He resents his son, and Marty doesn't even pick up on it, he prefers Marty's dick-head older brother, Tripp (Josh Lawson). Katherine LaNasa plays Brady's wife, Rose, who hates him, is a total selfish bitch, and is boguth of by the Motches to appear at Brady's campaign rallies. Sarah Baker plays Mitzi Huggins, Marty's faithful and loving wife. Karen Maruyam plays Ray Huggins's maid, Mrs. Yao, who is forced to speak in a Southern black maid accent, to remind Ray of "the good ole' days". Classic comedian Dan Aykroyd and renowned actor John Lithgow play the Motch brothers, the corrupt business dealers, who care only about profits, even though they're billionaires, they also own sweatshops in China and other Asian countries. There are tons of celebrity cameos, including John Goodman as a corrupt politician, and Bill Maher, Piers Morgan, Chris Matthews, the crew of Morning Joe, Wolf Blitzer, Dennis Miller, Ed Schultz and more as themselves. Another cameo is made by "Uggie" the cute dog from Academy Award-winning art film The Artist. The humor in the film is outstanding. They make fun of everything: over-the-top rallies, the media over-covering stupid politicians and celebrities, those stupid and nonsensical campaign commericals (like Rick Perry's commericals), stupid politicans, George Bush, corrupt politicans, the all-American image, and, especially, the use of the Bible and Jesus to win over voters. The reason I really enjoyed this film is because it's so original. I know what your saying "Really? This is the only political comedy you've seen?" No, that's not it. I love this film because it's not trying to be overly vulgar. Sure, it's very crude and nasty, but it's not like Hangover II or Ted where they try to be so nasty and vulgar it's just not funny anymore, it feels natural for this weird, over-the-top world. It's not crammed with pop-culture references (Ted), and the humor is always relevant to the plot. It's not like Family Guy where it's trails off to some clip or gag, it keeps with the plot, and every gag has a funny and satisfying punchline, unlike Family Guy where sometimes it's really funny, or it's just a mediocre joke to pad the run-time. The Campaign is a funny, relevant, and politically incorrect film, that I recommend to fans of The Hangover or Horrible Bosses. 4/5 stars.