Those who expect Jon Stewart's political comedy to be a left-wing screed will be either disappointed or relieved. This satire is truly as "fair and balanced" as certain others deceptively claim to be. It's a gutshot to our entire electoral system, showing both sides of The Aisle to be equally guilty, guilty, guilty.
Steve Carell stars as a seasoned Democratic political strategist who finds a viral You Tube clip of a small town man (Chris Cooper) in Wisconsin, making a stirring speech for the rights of others in a city hall meeting, opposing the pompous mayor and his council.. He learns that the folksy, yet eloquent fellow is a veteran and farmer, which is just what his party needs to start winning back blue-collar and rural Midwestern voters. He knows The Party and Cooper have matching values and beliefs, even though the town and state have been voting Republican.
Carell, a city guy who's (often hilariously) out of his element when trying to fit it there, rushes to the town to convince Cooper to run for mayor, breaking the Republicans' lock on the area and state. He wants Cooper to become the new face of the party. Cooper reluctantly agrees. A Republican operative (Rose Byrne), who's Carell's counterpart and frequent nemesis, sees the threat Cooper poses to their hold on that part of the base, and storms in with her minions to help the mayor keep his seat. Both parties smell a potential national impact from this minor race, and start pouring huge dollars into the fray, cranking up all the donors and tactics usually reserved for bigger stages. Both sides seem comparably desperate, and completely out of touch with the locals they're trying to woo.
This film has all the wit and cynicism of political satires akin to 1997's brilliant Wag the Dog, or earlier efforts from A Face in the Crowd and Manchurian Candidate on the dramatic side to comedies like Bulworth and Primary Colors. Both sides court a demographic group they little understand. Both are classic fish out of water who take far too long to realize how misguided their entire approach to elections has become. Various tactics either seem to work only in the short run, or backfire - sometimes spectacularly.
The wisdom of those "regular people" is greater than the Beltway Insiders understand. The clever plot delivers laughs, poignancy and a genuinely satisfying resolution. We meet a town of good people, not a bunch of rubes to be bought or manipulated by outsiders. Everyone grows wiser and more understanding of others by the end. We can all learn while we laugh at an extremely timely tale like this.
