A Close Call

CAST: Will Ferrell,Zach Galifianakis,Jason Sudeikis,Dylan McDermott,John Lithgow,Dan Aykroyd,Brian Cox

Rating: **1/2

A parody on the way American elections are run at a time when it is playing out in the US,in the hands of Ferrell and Galifianakis,should be an interesting proposition. What it ends up being is a parody of that parody.

The Campaign touches on all that comes into it — from religion and family values to Botox injections and facial hair. The especially hilarious part involves Ferrell’s four-time Congressman Cam Brady trying to recite the “Lord’s Prayer” at a poll debate. That follows Galifianakis’s Marty Huggins saying his moustache isn’t inspired by Saddam Hussein,as alleged by Brady,but “the biggest American of them all” — Jesus Christ — to loud applause.

Big business houses have propped up Huggins,who is portly,uninteresting and bereft of ideas except good intentions,till a savvy media manager takes over his campaign. It now turns into a slugfest and a sex tape involving Brady and Huggins’s wife eventually makes it to TV.

However,in the way the film finally plays out,it ends up being neither a comment on the dirtiness of politics nor the goodness of a few. It can’t resist taking potshots at anyone,particularly the easiest targets,and that’s just not done in a film where “honesty” is the winner.