Troy's Bucket: The Campaign

Will Farrell has picked a pretty good time to get political as the Conventions are about to get under way and silly attack season is starting to hit a crescendo. So far in the battle for the real elections we've had sniping over gaffes, lies about the opponents policy and all out class warfare. You would think that the insane shenanigans of a Will Farrell movie would be completely removed from reality but unfortunately this is politics and a good number of things that happen in the movie that seem ridiculous and insane have actually happened for real and in some cases the dumb ass that either slept with prostitutes or was caught driving under the influence was still able to win. Only in America I guess. Or at least in North Carolina.

Democratic Incumbent Cam Brady (Will Farrell) is seeking another term in a largely uncontested county in N.C. He's a shameless corrupt dumb ass who is running pretty fast and loose. He enjoys the lifestyle of a politician without doing very much for his constituents. He is shortly challenged by the son of Jesse Helms' campaign manager Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) who pulls off a perfect nasaly North Carolina accent. Marty is a naive weirdo who has been co-opted to run in order to be controlled by two Puppet master brothers the Motch Brothers (Dan Aykroyd & John Lithgow). These bad brothers are looking to sell off the county to the Chinese and they need Marty to sign on the dotted line once he's elected. Marty and Cam engage in warfare for votes that are hilarious and at times insane.

This was overall a funny flick and a good return to form for Will Farrell, who in my opinion, has started to hit the Adam Sandler wall into obnoxiousness. I mean there have been times lately where I want to punch him in the face but mostly for just playing the same dumb amoral jackass character he keeps playing. In this case he does the shameless politicking pretty good. It seemed like he was playing with the looks and scandals of real Senators David Vitter and John Edwards. I caught a couple jokes there about his 9,000 dollar hair cut. I thought that Jason Sudekis' campaign manager really made the funny scenes sharper and kept it a bit more grounded then it had any reason to be. But once he's off screen Will Farrell takes over and cranks it up to 11 which is where this thing went off the rails a bit. I really do enjoy good satire and this certainly was a good attempt and again if they would have tamped down Farrell it really could have resonated as such. But I mean the whole thing about making ads with Farrell trying to boink his opponents wife is not, I repeat, not going to really help him in the polls. I think they went too silly especially when the corporate puppeteer angle was so solid the hijinks near the end of the movie almost ruined the larger point. Dylan McDermott's fixer lurking behind the scenes and bullying the feminine Marty were some of the best parts of the film, who knew he could be so funny. Which brings us to the Motch Brothers stuff. I can see now why the inspiration for the brothers, the Koch's, were not so happy. It points out not so subtlety that thanks to Citizens United were going to have a lot more Boss Tweed type representatives. These Corporate bozos are really spending Billions on this election and if their guy wins they are going to be looking for their pound of flesh. If you want to know what kind of damage these brothers are looking to do if Romney wins, please click here. You'll get all the info you need on these guys and hopefully you'll be able to sleep well tonight after reading it. OK, promise I'm stepping off the soap box. So go and check out the flick if you are looking for a funny satire. It didn't seem to do as well as the usual Will Farrell flicks so I suggest you see it soon. You'll enjoy it much more than the Conventions, and at least it's fiction.