THE CAMPAIGN: I demand a recount.. or a recut

Cut through all the breathless hype and what you're left with is just another under performing Will Ferrell comedy.
Once again countless opportunities for genuine belly laughs are overlooked in favour of a gag that provokes an easy half smile and the smallest of laughter-like sounds emanating from the throat.

Ferrell and Zach Galafianakis play a pair of political opponents running for a Congressional seat in North Carolina. Farrell is Cam Brady, the foul-mouthed, corrupt, insincere and dunderheaded Democratic incumbent whose supposedly effortless run for re-election descends into a down and dirty slugfest when two wealthy Republican businessmen brothers (Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow) decide to run a rival candidate, Marty Huggins, who will champion their underhanded and unAmerican business practices.
As played by Galafianakis, Marty is not only a most unlikely candidate, but also a most unlikely married man and father of two. However he soon mans up when he realises just what kind of dirty game his opponent is playing, and the two rapidly descend into the politics of the gutter where nothing is beyond the pale.
There's so much material in the 2012 version of American politics to poke fun you might imagine the makers of this film would be spoilt for choice, but while THE CAMPAIGN identifies much of the material it fails to effectively exploit it. Neither the screenplay writers, nor director Jay Roach or Ferrell and co-star Galifianakis ever figure out how to unleash the potential. There's a couple of very near misses, including Brady's blatant refusal to answer any of the questions put to him at a televised debate, and some manufactured outrage at his opponent's actions, but the film seems determined to rest its laurels on the baby-punching scene.
It's the highlight clip in the trailers, creating an impression of THE CAMPAIGN as wild and crazy comedy where absolutely anything goes (it's much the same image as the one promoted of Ferrell's screen persona and one he almost always fails to live up to).
"THEY'RE PUNCHING A BABY, FOR CRIPES SAKE! WILL FERRELL IS A CRAZY GUY! HE"S PUNCHING A BABY IN THE FACE! OH - MY - GOD!"
If this is all it takes to brand a comedy as wild, crazy and out there then standards really have slipped. Yes Ferrell very graphically punches a baby but it's an obviously cgi infant which drastically blunts the impact, and later on when he punches the dog from 'The Artist' my only thought was "what on earth is that dog doing in this film? He has absolutely no reason being there."
THE CAMPAIGN makes the point that we get the politicians we deserve, and that if only we were less gullible and susceptible to irrational emotional responses to trigger words like America, Jesus and Freedom then perhaps we'd get a better quality of politician to vote for. If only that were true, and the same logic could be applied to Will Ferrell comedies this country would be a much happier place.