[Review] – The Campaign

Title: The Campaign
Year: 2012
Director: Jay Roach
Writers: Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell, based on a story by Mr. Henchy, Mr. Harwell and Adam McKay
Starring: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Katherine LaNasa, Dylan McDermott, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, Brian Cox
MPAA Rating: R, crude sexual content, language and brief nudity
Runtime: 85 min
IMDb Rating: 6.4
Rotten Tomatoes: 66%
Metacritic: 49

Jay Roach is a director who has dabbled in two very different kinds of films along his career. On the one hand, the guy’s been responsible for some pretty successful comedies, most of them R-rated affairs, that include all three Austin Powers movies. Yet on the other hand, the guy’s made two films for HBO that are dramas about political elections, 2008’s Recount, about the 2000 Presidential election, which won him an Emmy for his direction, and this year’s Game Change, about the 2008 Presidential election, which sees him as the front-runner to take that Emmy again once the awards take place next month.

[Trailer] – The Campaign

 

Jay Roach has directed some comedies in his life, all three Austin Powers films among them, but he’s also directed political films for HBO like Recount (for which he won an Emmy) and the upcoming Game Change. Well, in his latest film, The Campaign, he’s marrying both comedy and politics, and you can check out the first trailer for it after the cut.

The Other Guys

Title: The Other Guys
Year: 2010
Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Adam McKay and Chris Henchy
Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Ray Stevenson, Rob Riggle
MPAA Rating: PG-13, crude and sexual content, language, violence and some drug material
Runtime: 107 min
Major Awards: –
IMDb Rating: 7.2
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%

The Other Guys isn’t the best Will Ferrell/Adam McKay collaboration, that would be Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, but it’s definitely better than Step Brothers, and it’s a really hilarious film, one that seriously gets huge laughs from audiences, and considering the laughs haven’t really been there this summer season, unless you count Get Him to the Greek which was released two months ago already, then this one’s just a huge success.

The plot isn’t always terrific, but this is a film that doesn’t care much for plot, just for the laughs it can get out of it, and the laughs are huge, and that’s all thanks to Will Ferrell, who’s back to form after the disastrous Land of the Lost in 2009, and thanks largely to Mark Wahlberg, too, who showed everyone he can be pretty damn funny if he’s given such a perfect role for his personality, and, like he’s said in every single talkshow he’s done promoting the film, this is the movie that gave him the opportunity to shoot Derek Jeter, so he’ll be a hero in his Boston hometown.

Like all Ferrell-McKay collaborations The Other Guys is at its best when it goes out of control and starts being amazingly silly, because really, Will Ferrell is the master of out-of-control silliness, I mean, just his voice when he starts shouting his quick-witted comedic improvs, or his big body when he starts going full on at the doofus-type physical comedy he’s so damn good at.

Allen Gamble, however, is a completely different character than the past ones in this great comedic actor-director team, he’s completely quiet and chill, not loud like Brennan Huff was in Step Brothers, he has a regular job as a desk-bound detective and isn’t a local celebrity like Ron Burgundy was in Anchorman, he’s the most normal character Mr. Ferrell has played in these sort of films, and he’s still a character that works incredibly well. You see, Allen Gamble is just totally passive, and ignorant of many stuff that goes on around him, and all of that is exploited in the funniest ways when Mark Wahlberg’s Terry Hoitz comes into the equation, shit just gets all sorts of crazy after that.

There are some so-so parts in The Other Guys, I mean it can’t all be perfect, and the problem I thought this one had was that it kind of started taking itself a bit seriously about halfway into the film. This one would have been better off had it followed the Anchorman path, and remained completely loose and a plain parody of the environment it portrays, instead this one seemingly starts to overthink quite a bit and tries to be too much of a straight-up police action flick, and when it goes into that mode it doesn’t shine as brightly as it does when it’s just a spoof of exactly that same sort of film.

Eva Mendes co-stars as Allen’s wife, and that brings out quite a few laughs, not only because it’s kind of rough imagining the two of them actually being an item, especially when Mr. Ferrell’s character is so dull as he is in this one, but also because Terry’s face and disbelief when he meets her is pretty hilarious, and Allen is just completely unaware of the hotness of his wife, and not really appreciative of her, and you wonder how such a woman could have been attracted to a guy like him.

There are other pretty damn funny bits when this one excels, there are also bits, however, when this one sort of enters into Cop Out territory, and we all know how that movie fared earlier this year. But still, the funny bits alone make this one more than worth the admission ticket, and it will surely go down as one of the funniest comedies of the year, I mean, Will Ferrell is back to form, people, he’s seriously pretty damn good in this one, the best he’s been since Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, another collaboration with Mr. McKay some four years ago. And Mark Wahlberg being cast out of type is a true joy to watch, and he certainly proves he can handle comedic roles, just look at his face in those Eva Mendes scenes, they’re priceless.

Grade: B+