Cam Brady (Ferrell) is the incumbent congressman for the 14th District and is facing a landslide win in the polls as he's running unopposed.
However, he's also taking advantage of his position but breaking just about every law of decency and gets caught out when he drunkenly, and mistakenly, calls a Christian couples home to leave a crude message to his mistress.
It's then that corrupt tycoons Glenn and Wade Motch (John Lithgow and Dan Ackroyd) decide they can oust Brady and put in a puppet who they can use to turn the North Carolina district into a sweatshop for cheap Chinese labour and make a fortune.
They decide on the unassuming, and a little odd, Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) to contest the seat and thus the campaign begins - and nothing is off limits.
Huggins is your classic simpleton - he's not necessarily dumb but he is certainly naive and a believer in the good in people. So the Motch brothers send in a campaign manager, Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott), to turn Huggins into a contender.
Overall I have to say I didn't mind the movie. The big problem I have though is that it wasn't funny, particularly, but it was still pretty good. Sure, there were a few laugh out loud scenes - one involving the confessions of the Huggins family - but I'd have to say I certainly wasn't in stitches.
Ferrell is actually pretty good in his role as was his sparring partner but for some reason they couldn't produce the laughs I was expecting.
That makes it a little hard to judge. As a comedy it pretty much fails because, simply, I didn't find it funny. But then again it was still good enough to hold my interest. I sense a missed opportunity here.
It seems the idea was good and even the casting was good but perhaps they couldn't decide on whether they were making a satire or a comedy or something in between.
Make of that what you will....it's not bad but just not funny. 6 out of 10.
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