It's hard to evaluate a film like this because its -- well, its variance is so great. Did I laugh out loud at some of the gags? Yes. Did I wince at others? You bet.
What's more, this isn't really a movie about mud slinging during a campaign but it's more than that, almost a satire of American political values, or American values in general. When you ridicule the electoral process of the nation, you ridicule everyone who participates in it. And when you ridicule everyone, you ridicule the society that they've formed.
Will Ferrell, who made me chuckle here for the first time, is a four-time Representative from a congressional district in North Carolina, comfortable in his numb, dumb skin. He speaks in platitudes and does all the other things that congressman are presumed to do. He's funded by, and compliant to the wishes of, John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd, the "Motch brothers." The Motch brothers are quite a pair. They'll stop at nothing to advance their interests. They've already implemented the first part of their plan. They've bought up a tremendous amount of acreage in a rural area and then sold it to the Chinese at an enormous profit. Next, they will cooperate with the Chinese in building a large red factory, once Ferrell gets those nettlesome EPA regulations out of the way, and bring in Chinese workers at fifty cents an hour. They will call it "insourcing." That's a pretty clever fantasy, and there are more gags like it. Ferrell's opponent is Zach Galifianakis, a naive Southrin schlub who manages to collect all the documents needed to run against Ferrell, who is a shoe-in.
What follows may not be what you'd expect. The contest between the idealistic schlub and the arrogant professional politician doesn't gradually devolve into mud slinging. As in real life, it BEGINS with dirt. Ferrell's campaign runs an attack ad showing a photo-shopped picture of Saddam Hussein with mustache, black beret, shades, and uniform. As the voice-over lambastes Galifianakis, the items are whipped away from the image, one by one, until Galifianakis' face appears. They have the mustache in common, as the voice-over points out.
When his candidacy is about to be taken seriously, Galifianakis queries his wife and two children over the dinner table. They are going to receive intense scrutiny from the media and he wants to know if there are any secrets they've been hiding, any skeletons in their closets that might damage his campaign. Their initial innocent confessions grow into the most abhorrent abominations.
But then there is a certain amount of silliness, not so much in the dialog but in the slapstick scenes, such as the one in which a desperate Ferrell is courting the vote of a snake-handling cult and is bitten by a rattlesnake. The psychedelic effects aren't amusing, but a later glimpse of his forearm, purple and swollen to the size of Popeye's, is.
The happy ending seems grafted on to a much more effective story. The writers and director should have gone the "Dr. Strangelove" route and lived with the consequences of what they've already demonstrated. It also seems rushed at time, but it's still pretty amusing.
What's more, this isn't really a movie about mud slinging during a campaign but it's more than that, almost a satire of American political values, or American values in general. When you ridicule the electoral process of the nation, you ridicule everyone who participates in it. And when you ridicule everyone, you ridicule the society that they've formed.
Will Ferrell, who made me chuckle here for the first time, is a four-time Representative from a congressional district in North Carolina, comfortable in his numb, dumb skin. He speaks in platitudes and does all the other things that congressman are presumed to do. He's funded by, and compliant to the wishes of, John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd, the "Motch brothers." The Motch brothers are quite a pair. They'll stop at nothing to advance their interests. They've already implemented the first part of their plan. They've bought up a tremendous amount of acreage in a rural area and then sold it to the Chinese at an enormous profit. Next, they will cooperate with the Chinese in building a large red factory, once Ferrell gets those nettlesome EPA regulations out of the way, and bring in Chinese workers at fifty cents an hour. They will call it "insourcing." That's a pretty clever fantasy, and there are more gags like it. Ferrell's opponent is Zach Galifianakis, a naive Southrin schlub who manages to collect all the documents needed to run against Ferrell, who is a shoe-in.
What follows may not be what you'd expect. The contest between the idealistic schlub and the arrogant professional politician doesn't gradually devolve into mud slinging. As in real life, it BEGINS with dirt. Ferrell's campaign runs an attack ad showing a photo-shopped picture of Saddam Hussein with mustache, black beret, shades, and uniform. As the voice-over lambastes Galifianakis, the items are whipped away from the image, one by one, until Galifianakis' face appears. They have the mustache in common, as the voice-over points out.
When his candidacy is about to be taken seriously, Galifianakis queries his wife and two children over the dinner table. They are going to receive intense scrutiny from the media and he wants to know if there are any secrets they've been hiding, any skeletons in their closets that might damage his campaign. Their initial innocent confessions grow into the most abhorrent abominations.
But then there is a certain amount of silliness, not so much in the dialog but in the slapstick scenes, such as the one in which a desperate Ferrell is courting the vote of a snake-handling cult and is bitten by a rattlesnake. The psychedelic effects aren't amusing, but a later glimpse of his forearm, purple and swollen to the size of Popeye's, is.
The happy ending seems grafted on to a much more effective story. The writers and director should have gone the "Dr. Strangelove" route and lived with the consequences of what they've already demonstrated. It also seems rushed at time, but it's still pretty amusing.