It looks like campaign season has begun.
Or rather, it looks like “The Campaign” season has begun, with Warner Bros. using Facebook today to kick off the marketing for the new Jay Roach political comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis.
Roach’s last film was the HBO drama “Game Change,” and part of his goal with that film was to stick very close to reality since he was depicting events from a real election that was held up to enormous media scrutiny. If he got the details wrong, we’d know immediately because of how the images from that primary season were burnt into our collective consciousness.
With “The Campaign,” it looks like Roach decided to kick loose and go the other direction, cranking up the absurdity of our political machine, and hiring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis seems like a good step in that direction. Instead of releasing a conventional trailer, this morning sees three new videos online. The first is on the main Facebook page for the film and features Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) and Cam Brady (Ferrell) together. Then each of them also has their own Facebook page where they have posted attack videos aimed at each other.
If you’re familiar with either of them, then you’re going to be able to pinpoint pretty quickly what they’re drawing on for this film. Cam Brady appears to be a vintage Will Ferrell lunk, a guy who has no idea how dim he is, and Galifianakis appears to have allowed his brother Seth to step in for him as Huggins.
I’m already tired of the 2012 election thanks to what has seemed like a particularly ugly primary season, and if it weren’t for “The Daily Show,” I think the media’s handling of these things would probably kill me from a combination of irritation and boredom. I hope “The Campaign” offers a further antidote to the inanity, and I look forward to checking it out later this year.
You can cast your vote for “The Campaign” on August 10, 2012.