The Campaign (Jay Roach) - 2012

Will Ferrell's character represents the worst possible candidate for national office.  As an incumbent congressman, he had been running unopposed in a safe district until he calls a wrong number and leaves an unsavory message to his girl friend on the answer phone of a religious family.  This event allows the evil Motch brothers (a parody of the billionaire Koch brothers who currently fund numerous Republican candidates) to send in their favorite son (Zach Galifianakis) to run against Ferrell.  Played by great character actors Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow, the Motch brothers plan to sell district land to Chinese manufacturer and "in-source" Chinese workers.  There are many great gags in this movie, and the subject is timely but the unnecessarily crude and profane language detracts significantly from the humor and the message. There were barely enough "clean" scenes for the movie trailer. In the theater where I sat, the crude jokes received groans instead of laughs.  Katherine LaNasa and Sarah Baker are excellent as the reluctant wives of the candidates.  Chris Mathews, Wolf Blitzer, Bill Maher, Piers Morgan, Dennis Miller, Lawrence O'Donnell, Ed Schultz, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did good jobs of portraying themselves.  No pugs were injured during the making of this movie. [JAM 9/5/2012]