Tuesday, August 14, 2012

THE CAMPAIGN: BITING BLOODY SATIRE AT ITS BEST

Satire, specifically political satire, doesn't get done anymore and when some try they fail miserably. Winners like Wag the Dog, Bullworth, Bob Roberts, and Team America nailed the grotesqueness of the political arena while lesser films like Swing Vote. War Inc. and Mars Attacks were a big swing and a miss. Enter Will Farrell's latest comedy The Campaign, a dead on look at modern day politics that simply attacks EVERYONE. Republicans, Democrats, the media and most importantly, voters, are skewered mercilessly in a non stop orgy of laugh out loud humor.

Farrell plays four time House congressman Cam Brady, a caricature of every awful Democrat ever: horny, media savvy and clueless. He's about to run unopposed in his district when the Koch brothers, oops I mean the Motch brothers (Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow), decide they can't control him anymore and run an effeminate but good natured local, Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) as his GOP opponent. The end result is two candidates, one already destroyed by politics and the other slowly being devoured by it as well, in a brutal death match that is part hysterical comedy and part blueprint for everything wrong with this country.

Cam punches babies and dogs. Huggins struggles with his good nature as his devilish campaign manager, played perfectly by Dylan McDermott, drags him kicking and screaming into the below the belt nature of modern day politics. Along the way, we see pitch perfect depictions of the media molding the narrative for their own designs, of voters deciding who to vote for for the worst reasons possible, and a political race defined by big money and no ideas. Sound familiar?

The ads they run against one another are barely above what real candidates are actually running at this point. One fake ad compares Huggins to terrorists like Al Queda as both support mustaches. Michelle Bachman, along with five other brain dead Tea Party Congressman, have recently done just that to members of Congress and Hillary Clinton's staff with the same level of proof. Add to that a screenplay that has the gaul to include real facts about the state of the nation, the horror, and laughs can quickly turn to outrage as you realize you are indeed crying for both the movie being very funny and absolutely accurate in what it has to say. That is what films should be doing and rarely do anymore.

As expected, those on the right are seeing this film as an attack on them, which it is, but it also hits everyone else along the well, democrat, republican, the elites and idiot America all at the same time. The worthless rag, the NY Post, a newspaper so foul it shouldn't even be used to train puppies, ran a review from resident douchebag Kyle Smith, who makes AO Scott look like a Pulitzer Prize winner. In his blatantly partisan review he said he was shocked, SHOCKED, by the awful portrayal of the true American heroes, the Koch Brothers. he really said that in his review seen here:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/no_saving_this_dimocracy_G0n8EMafOq9s4671VU2fCJ

I recommend anyone who actually like films to contact the NY Post and tell them in no uncertain terms that as long as they hire people like this who have NO business reviewing films that until he is gone, you will not advertise, you will not buy their rag, you will not tell anyone anything good about them until he is gone. Kyle Smith is a true asshole and I now live to see the day when I read in some better newspaper that some irate citizen threw hot soup into his eyes. I am sick to death of this kind of reviews from people being paid to watch films and not have a single reason why they should actually be doing this. There are too many people doing a job they shouldn't so as the rest of us starve to death on minimum wage, it's sickening to see some ass get his job because his daddy's runs the business or had a lot of money due to rich relatives. And yes Paul Ryan I am looking at you, you heartless bastards. More on his history and chances tomorrow. Hint: he's screwed.

This is one of the best movies of the year and a must see for all party affiliations as it tells you the absolute truth about what is really going on in politics today and in return, we get to laugh our asses off almost nonstop for the whole film. Go see it today.

5 stars out of 5