Bah! Jay Roach has directed a number of decent comedies like Meet the Parents and the Austin Powers trilogy; he has also directed two very good TV dramas of late - Game Change and Recount. The Campaign, no doubt, is a raunchy, satirical ode to the current state of affairs in this country and a spoof off his last two political movies. Was it very good though? No, not really.
Roach has proven, at least to me, that he can dramatize current bizarre and shady political schemes in a way that contains as much veracity as possible without feeling too heavy handed - a bit like what JFK was for Oliver Stone. You may not agree with the artistic license taken at all points but somehow the direction conveys what most people feel about how the events probably took place. His representation of Sarah Palin in Game Change seemed fair and incredible as was his telling of the Gore/Bush voting booth craziness in Recount.
The Campaign, however, was juvenile and hackneyed in the extreme. Corporations are bad. Capitalism is bad. Money is bad. There are some funny jokes, but most of them you feel like an idiot for laughing at, or worse, you begin to conjure a laugh and then you choke mid way through because whatever is said is not really even that amusing. A typical day out with Will Ferrell - gross out humor and peculiar sentences instead of wit and subtlety. Roach should stick to TV drama and stay away from puerile farce. Bah!
Recommended Viewing: The Great McGinty - Election - Wag The Dog
Bob Scale: Objective: 6.0 - Subjective: 6.5
MetaCritic: 63
Rotten Tomatoes: 66
IMDB: 6.2
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