REVIEW: The Campaign

The Campaign (2012): Dir. Jay Roach. Written by: Chris Hency and Shawn Harwell. Starring: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Katherine LaNasa, Dylan McDermott, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd and Brian Cox. Rated R (Dirty politics and dirtier jokes). Running time: 85 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

The Campaign, directed by Jay Roach and starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, seeks to lampoon the cruel, nasty, dirty game that is contemporary American politics. And what better time to do so than when the country is smack in the middle of a heated election?

The cinematic landscape of 2012 might not at first seem to be the most conducive environment for a savvy political satire. The must-be-as-vulgar-as-possible imperatives of today’s mainstream comedies don’t leave much room for the more nuanced aims of satire. And yet movies like The Campaign prove that these disparate comedic objectives can be merged – and they don’t even need to be accused of flip-flopping. (See also: the films of Sacha Baron Cohen and the Harold & Kumar series which are crude and clever – in that order.)

Satirizing the politics of the present moment is also difficult for another reason. How do you make absurd what is already ridiculous? The Campaign is up to the task, escalating steadily from slight exaggerations of what we see on the news to increasingly outrageous gags. This is also where the film’s second identity as a crude comedy comes in handy. The Campaign is able to enter decidedly R-rated territory the likes of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, say, cannot touch even on late-night TV.

Director Jay Roach is a good fit for the material, having previously directed movies for HBO about two of the more surreal chapters in recent political history – the 2000 recount and the vice presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin. He also helmed two of the bigger hits of the late-90s/early-2000s – Austin Powers and Meet the Parents – so he knows how to put together a comedy. The Campaign skips along at a fast pace, never lingering too long on any one bit.

Having Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis at your disposal certainly helps too. Mr. Ferrell plays Congressman Cam Brady, a Democrat from North Carolina’s 14^th District. Cam Brady doesn’t have much of anything to add to political discourse but has found he can win over just about any crowd by strategically emphasizing the words America, Jesus and Freedom. Also by showing off his wife, Rose (Katherine LaNasa, looking like the spitting image of Ann Romney), who gives a supporting wave from behind the podium, hoping to smile her way into the role of Second Lady.

Cam has grown accustomed to running unopposed and even the worst PR incident – a lewd message meant for his mistress but left on a quaint Southern family’s answering machine is only the most recent – seems unlikely to jeopardize a fifth term for him.

That is, until the Motch brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) decide to intervene. The billionaire brothers need a man on Capitol Hill who will support their latest collaboration with a Chinese manufacturer (they want to build a sweat shop in North Carolina). They decide to fund a PAC that will support Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), the son of their business partner, Raymond (Brian Cox), in a ploy to buy a candidate who will endorse their scheme. Marty, a pudgy oddball with a squeak of a voice, runs the small town of Hammond’s tourism office. He has never thought of himself as a politician but has always hoped his father might one day ask him to run for office.

We know from last year’s The Ides of March that behind every candidate is a campaign advisor pulling the strings. Tim Wattley (a straight-faced and hilarious Dylan McDermott) is called in to work on the Huggins campaign and retool Marty’s public image. (He swaps Marty’s beloved pugs for Labrador retrievers and packs the Huggins household with hunting gear.) Marty’s sweetheart of a wife, Mitzi (Sarah Baker), feels her husband has changed in the name of political ambition but it’s not long before she gets caught up in the campaign as well, and in an especially embarrassing way. Meanwhile, at Camp Brady, Cam’s advisor, Mitch Wilson (Jason Sudeikis playing straight man to Mr. Ferrell), struggles to keep his candidate from imploding.

The satire in The Campaign is blunt and often obvious but subtlety probably isn’t the best approach when your leads are Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Galifianakis. Whenever the script, written by Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell, loses steam, the two actors pick up the slack with energetic performances. They play off one another well. (For those who are looking for a subtler jab at politics, I highly recommend the 2009 British comedy In the Loop.)

The Campaign has the hastily made feel of a movie that was produced quickly in order to hit on a topical subject matter while it’s still relevant. This is also to say that it has a loose and eager-to-please style that doesn’t worry whether or not every joke sticks. The script could be tighter in places and the ending in particular goes out with a whimper but these shortcomings aren’t too detrimental.

I mentioned The Ides of March earlier and the more I think about it, the more I’m amused at how much the two movies have in common (they follow similar story beats and set their sights on basically the same targets). For my money, The Campaign does a better job exposing the hypocrisies of political campaigns and takes the more appropriate approach to the subject. With things the way they are, maybe a handful of goofy jokes are the only proper response.

- Steve Avigliano, 8/13/12

REVIEW: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): Dir. Rupert Wyatt. Written by: Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Starring James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton and David Oyelowo. Rated PG-13 (Violent riots carried out by apes). Running time: 105 minutes.

1 ½ stars (out of four)

Many years from now, long after human society has crumbled, when whatever living sentient race is examining the Planet of the Apes films, I hope they do not linger on the six films that followed the 1968 original starring Charlton Heston. And if they do, let them take the four sequels from the early 70s, Tim Burton’s supremely silly remake in 2001 and now Rise of the Planet of the Apes as examples of Hollywood’s relentless desire to repeat any and all past successes if doing so means a chance at more commercial gain.

The original Planet of the Apes is already something of an old relic, a classic that still resonates in spite of the fact that it now feels a little dated. The Twilight Zone-esque story (Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling co-wrote the script) with its now famous twist ending was very much a product of its time and though its allegorical comments on nuclear war and modern society are as true as they have ever been, they do not necessarily translate to contemporary blockbuster success.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an attempt to reboot the franchise from a different narrative starting point. Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist at a company called GEN-SYS working on a cutting edge drug that could cure Alzheimer’s. His boss, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo), is a pharmaceutical mogul excited about the drug’s financial potential but Will’s stakes in the drug are more personal; his father (John Lithgow) suffers from the degenerative disease. Tests in the lab successfully enhance the brainpower of chimps and the drug’s prospects look good until an accident in the lab puts the project on hold.

In the wake of the project’s failure, Will acquires a newborn chimp birthed by one of the test apes. Caesar, as he is symbolically named, has inherited the effects of the drug from his mother and over the next few years Will nurtures the ape’s inborn intelligence, a choice that leads humanity down a dangerous path the scientists from Project Nim only narrowly avoided.

Unlike the 1968 original or the 2001 remake, the human protagonist is not terribly important here. Rise is very much the apes’ story and because of this, the film makes little effort to offer any worthwhile human characters. Franco, who has a smirking charm in other films, gives a bland and sleepy performance. Mostly he exists to restate plot points in case you miss any of those subversive, glaring looks on the expressive faces of the computer-animated apes.

The rest of the film’s Homo sapiens are equally dull. Will’s girlfriend (Freida Pinto) isn’t given a single thing to do, though she is very pretty and occasionally chimes in a cautious word. And much time is wasted on a handful of feeble human antagonists including Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame as an oddly vicious caretaker at a primate facility who bears more than a little resemblance to the actor’s Draco Malfoy role. The venerable Brian Cox also appears as the facility’s owner but he is underused. The real villain is (or rather, should be) Jacobs, the corporate-minded pharmaceutical exec who pushes for hasty and reckless testing of the drug on as many apes as possible.

But Rise of the Planet of the Apes explores the subtleties of scientific ethics with all the grace of one of its 400-pound stars. “I make money and you make history!” Jacobs shouts to Will late in the film, trying to convince him to go through with the risky tests. The film lumbers along with tedious exposition and clunky dialogue for most of its running time until the final stretch when the uprising promised by the title occurs.

The film’s stupidity does provide some giddy entertainment, if perhaps unintentionally. One scene features Caesar engaging an orangutan in a sign language conversation that is – hilariously – subtitled. Once the action gets going, we also learn that the apes have an unusual affinity for leaping through glass, a feat that apparently does them no harm but makes for a dramatic entrance.

One of the film’s biggest flaws is the apes themselves. The CGI (including a motion-capture performance from CGI veteran Andy Serkis as Caesar) is impressive but cannot hide the fact that all the apes are animated creatures. The overuse of CGI takes the life out of the apes despite the filmmakers’ best efforts to do the opposite. I recall the effectiveness of the original’s costumes – silly though they may now seem – or the eerie unreality of Stanley Kubrick’s apes in the “Dawn of Man” sequence from 2001. Heck, even Tim Burton’s version had great costumes. No degree of skillful animation can beat the tactile pleasure of watching an actor in a monkey costume and I mean that with the utmost sincerity.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes wants to revive an outdated franchise but doesn’t have any drive or purpose beyond the commercial obligation to use the rights to the title while the studio still has it. In another ten years we may get another Apes film (be it remake, reboot or regurgitation) and when that happens, will anyone care about this film? Will they even remember it? Or will it be wait to be scrutinized an eon or two from now as a prime example of perfunctory summer entertainment?

- Steve Avigliano, 8/11/11