When youre in the movie reviewing ministry, a variety of messages and agendas come and go. Yes, this is a movie where a diabolical character is given the surname Candy, and what can you really say? He denies being a member of the cult. As a result of this, Castillo agrees to start running a negative campaign. Jane gets a call from Pat who tells her to turn on the TV. The message I got from this movie was very positive. [2/4], Sandra Bullock is the best part of this wobbly farce As a look at the state of the art of political campaigning (in the US as well as in Bolivia), Our Brand Is Crisis does not cut particularly deep and the ending isnt great. Jane suggests that Castillo reveal everything that could be used against him, but he refuses. . So yes, throughout the film, the protagoniststhe ones portrayed as good guysuse communistic propaganda. But every once in a while, you come across a movie that seems to be driving an evil message all the way through, and then suddenly the ending takes a moral turn and shows that the protagonists were wrong. He resides in Atlanta with his wife and their dog Jack. February 27, 2023. All the stupid tricks are here, the ones people laugh at onscreen in the context of a film like this but fall for in spite of themselves on their TVs during football games. They reluctantly agree, but the city is in gridlock due to the protests, which are on the verge of becoming riots. He cant reconcile that her success also makes her a bad person. When Jane leaves the meeting with LeBlanc, she instead instructs her to dig up dirt on Castillo, their own candidate. Smoke too much? It needs a strongman who can handle a crisis. Entertaining and provocative, Our Brand Is Crisis is a satirical political drama. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jason The film starts with Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) being interviewed. But theres no real fun in determining the extent to which this movie is some sort of a clef expos. Karen Kunawicz. The study of crisis management originated with large-scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980s. Jane is seen having a moment of introspection. Director David Gordon Green Writers Rachel Boynton (suggested by the documentary) Peter Straughan (screenplay) Stars Sandra Bullock Around the edges of this story about Bullocks character, an especially ruthless consultant known as Calamity Jane, there are a few intriguing hints of other stories about the international financial system, the power of fear in politics and the American understanding of what democracy means when applied to other people in other countries. Facing a general strike and a series of confrontations between soldiers and protesters that left at least 67 civilians dead, Goni imposed martial law in October 2003, and the U.S. State Department issued a statement offering its full support. David Gordon Green keeps the perspectives shifting, getting lots of good angles on this three-ring circus. SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Someone smashes an egg on Castillo, who spectacularly punches the assailant. After this incident, however, Castillo shows the other side of him by being kind to protesters who throw rocks at his bus. But when youre reviewing a political drama, you have to be careful to pay close attention. Jane insists to the campaign team that this was set up by Candy. His name is too long with her so she just calls him Eddie. Goni fled the country five days later, and now lives in exile in the U.S., which has refused to extradite him to Bolivia to face trial for extrajudicial killings and other crimes against humanity. January 14, 2016. "Our Brand Is Crisis" is a fictionalized treatment of the 2005 documentary of the same name, which focused on Bill Clinton's former campaign manager James Carville. Sometimes its melodramaticthink the sinister Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Ides of March, or most notably, Kevin Spaceys snaky Frank Underwood, the master strategist and politician bundled into one on House of Cards. - Jane: It's like he killed himself rather than appear in our commercial.". The 2005 Our Brand Is Crisis was the second documentary about Carville's political work, following 1993's The War Room, in addition to Carville's dramatic acting rsum and cable news career.. It is a record turnout and at days end, the results are: Castillo 23.5%, Rivera 22.8%, Volasco 21.9%. Well, this is the rambunctious comedy version of Our Brand Is Crisis, framed by director David Gordon Green and the British writer Peter Straughan not with a dead boy but the personal odyssey of a fictional character. In its best moments, Our Brand Is Crisis is reminiscent of Wag the Dog; it knows how fucked politics is and acts accordingly. [24], On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 35% based on 147 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The interviewer talks about his son. (Vice) President Selina Meyers (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has a stable of advisers including Dan Egan (Reid Scott) and Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) who have internalized and aspire to the Carville cult; its just that reality interrupts to remind them that things dont work like that. However, Castillo refuses to give permission for the team to do so. Bodines character loosely channels celebrity political consultant James Carville, one of the Americans who worked on the 2002 Bolivian campaign and a consistent fascination of Hollywood. Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. Jane highlights something in the book. So they cop out, closing on an unlikely, feel-good character turn for Bodine. On a campaign bus heading toward a remote Bolivia location on a small dirt road, they discover Riveras bus is directly ahead of them. She meets the campaign team but stays in the background at the first meeting, clearly feeling ill. A bus race ensues around dangerous bends and cliffs. The problem is that they do such a good job selling this Jane that they do exactly what theyre supposed to do: They make you curious about her. Our Brand is Crisis was one of these pleasant surprises. When Bodine realizes that she brought a liar into office, she has the car stopped and leaves to join Eduardo. Initially under the impression that her man is a dud, Jane is soon animated by Castillos spontaneous response to getting egged (that is, he decks the egger) and her personal animus against Candy. In the mix is a fine supporting cast including a sensational Thornton . Castillo's bus is stopped by a group of protesters who don't want the International Monetary Fund in Bolivia. She just needs to hear him deny it. The corporations whined and complained, but ultimately decided that 18 percent was a lot better than nothing. A one-stop-shop for all things video games. The women of, Sam Levinson and the Weeknd Allegedly Turned, Theres No Red Button You Can Push to Stop. Nevertheless, theres not much reason for you to take my word over theirs. He is currently 28 points behind. See list of Relevant Issuesquestions-and-answers. From that day on, she says, our brand is crisis.. Like before, it came from La Paz Grassroots, but this time it really did come from Candy. The film starts with Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) being interviewed. At the start, Jane has been out of the consulting game for several years, following a traumatic mayoral race. Greens last three picturesPrince Avalanche, Joe, and Manglehornfelt like personal indie films, and Our Brand Is Crisis seems like an attempt to reach back into the mainstream with a mix of comedy and pathos, and yet it also comes off like a journeyman feature. She will work on the campaign of anybody, provided the money is right. Castillo has won the election. This satire, directed by David Gordon Green from a screenplay by Peter Straughan, suffers from deficits of wit, wisdom, focus, filmmaking expertise and appropriate tone. [11] More casting was also announced, which included Reynaldo Pacheco, Dominic Flores, Louis Arcella, and Octavio Gmez. Bullocks Jane Bodine offers nothing new. They plead with him that any negotiations with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) be preceded by a referendum so the people can decide. Finally, she meets with Castillo for their first conversation. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. The campaign advisors are telling Castillo he needs to meet with the people and be seen as one of the people. That's true even in "Our Brand Is Crisis," a . The story follows a political strategist who's recruited to help the campaign of a Bolivian presidential. She pulls from her bag the pottery bowl that Ben was admiring in the first scene, and hands it to him before climbing out of the car. Politics takes to cynicism like shit to a cesspool. It casts a skeptical eye at the gospel of globalization thats preached by Janes team, but its outrage is more directed at cynicism than at any specific system. Candy tells her he knows it was Jane who planted the fliers of Castillos infidelity in order to force Castillo to run a negative campaign. What part should morality play in politics? The crisis, when it came . Our Brand is Crisis hits a lot of clunky notes and the end is unforgivably cornball, but it's still one of the liveliest political black comedies I've seen in a while. We get on Janes adrenaline kick when she wins, but the movie rarely questions the deeper ramifications of her actions. This Friday, Sandra Bullock assumes the role in Our Brand Is Crisis, a mostly satirical take on a 2005 documentary of the same name about American political consultants conquest of a Bolivian election. The interviewer says she's been known by many names, most notably "Calamity Jane". [2/4], Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, would be perfect humanist, socialist, anti-capitalist propaganda except its a bit disjointed Abhorrent at least 61 obscenities rear female nudity when woman on bus moons other bus, crass, grimy and not sure of its own message burdens itself with foul language and sexual allusions, spoiling some pretty great performances from Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton. In 2002, Bolivian politician Pedro Gallo hires American James Carville's political consulting firm, Greenberg Carville Shrum, to help him win the 2002 Bolivian presidential election. The interviewer says shes been known by many names, most notably Calamity Jane. It might be possible to make a good movie out of a cross between Mike Nichols Primary Colors and Costa-Gavras Z, but Our Brand Is Crisis, directed by David Gordon Green in a seeming attempt to do something along those lines, is not that movie. Ben admires a shiny dark bowl but Nell takes it from him. While Castillo is meeting with the press, Jane meets Eduardo. The protest is growing in the city. But if you can be wary of those things, I do recommend this film. Walking into the room with the campaign team, she gives a fiery and inspirational speech about how important it is to go negative, and that anybody with a problem with that will be given a set of balls. She tells Nell she needs to pull some string with her contacts at the Bolivian State Department, in order to take votes from Castillo, and give them to Volasco (another candidate). Boynton traveled to Bolivia to cover the activity of a high-priced U.S. consulting firm, Greenberg Carville, and Shrum, in the 2002 presidential race, and she had amazingfrankly, flabbergastingaccess. Inspired by the 2005 documentary of the . But it never keeps the energy up, steering into forced visual gags, dull spells of earnestness, and ponderous backstory psychologythe viewer never is quite sure who really did what to whom in the Candy-Bodine love-hate relationship. The news that Jane will be pitted against political consultant Pat Candy, with whom she has a past, is enough to get her away from the wheel. Who paid for it? When it does, Jane moons the Rivera bus. Bush strategist Lee Atwater, who by his own reported deathbed admission was an unholy monster, and to this day keeps afloat the brand of George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove. Exactly who decided that a widely disliked candidate in such a small country merited such attention, alongside such star GCS clients as Tony Blair, the Israeli Labor Party and the Canadian Liberal Party? Instead of superhuman strength or projectile spider-webs, this puppet master has in her arsenal a penchant for drinking and smoking, instant access to the perfect quip at the perfect time, and a convenient lack of morality. I need a majority. Jane yells out the window to Candy that Rivera has dropped 6 points. Answer, Does HIGH MORAL CHARACTER matter in political leaders? Jane gets blasted, leaks misinformation, vandalizes Candys room, and sabotages his candidates rallies the way he sabotaged her candidates. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Jane also has to get Castillo to be totally transparent to her to uncover those skeletons that she might need to deal with, being transparent which he may not be willing to be, not realizing that her own skeletons might pop out to play. She opens with footage of an anti-government riot that came less than a year after the election. A shame, then, that the movie loses its cynical nerve with an utterly phoney finale that ties itself up in conscientious knots. *Sorry, there was a problem signing you up. Rivera then repeats the quote Jane told Candy. Mostly he is just a funny Southern person who served on a successful presidential campaign; the rest is projected onto him. Later at her hotel room, she is still nauseous from the elevation. Loosely based on true events, "Our Brand Is Crisis," follows Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) and her campaign team when they are hired to help Pedro Castillo win a presidential election in Bolivia. Jane is a broken prizefighter who has been called into the ring for one last round. On a scale of laminated-eyebrow drama to Lemon Lady Secrets. Jane says its just a carousel and she was going around and around. Although this is yet another nice white lady who benevolently comes to the aid of a non-white young person (in the case of Our Brand Is Crisis, it's a campaign intern who idolizes Castillo), Bullock shows a lot more shading here than in The Blind Side. The R-rating is because of the language. Back at the hotel room, Jane is with Eddie and his brothers, ordering room service and still drunk. [22], Our Brand Is Crisis grossed $7 million in North America and $1.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $8.6 million, against a budget of $28 million. There is something deeply disturbing about American political strategists helping an unpopular politician return back to presidency in a country as different as Bolivia. In case the true story behind the baffling and approximately well-intentioned Sandra Bullock star vehicle Our Brand Is Crisis makes any difference, here it is: Way back in the innocent days of 2002 (Im kidding about innocent), the high-powered political consulting firm Greenberg Carville Shrum parachuted into Bolivia to take up the cause of a struggling presidential candidate named Gonzalo Snchez de Lozada, universally known as Goni. Rachel Boynton, a documentary director whose work focuses on ideology, politics and power (her most recent movie, Big Men, is about the global workings of the oil industry), came along and made an extraordinary film about that campaign, whose title was drawn from a telling phrase coined by one of the GCS consultants. document.write(ts+'script src="http://www.burstnet.com/cgi-bin/ads/ad12539a.cgi/v=2.3S/sz=728x90A|970x66A/'+rnum+'/'+nf+'RETURN-CODE/JS/">'+ts+'/script>'); You can send in your spoiler to other movies by going here. The firm brings in "Calamity" Jane Bodine to manage Castillo's fledging campaign. But the fact that it wants to also squeeze in a redemptive tale is completely at odds with the work the protagonist is doing. Our Brand is Crisis is more than just the scenario Jane (Sandra Bullock) is selling to the Bolivian public in hopes of bringing her candidate Castillo from a blip on the radar to leading the. Our Brand Is Crisis is being released by Warner Bros., but was largely funded by Participant Media, which produces what it calls socially relevant films and documentaries. In other words, in this case the right-wingers are correct: Liberal Hollywood is in full effect. Another graphic shows the race at 22% for Castillo and 26% for Rivera with 16 days to go. At the start of the campaign, which he's hired an American consulting firm to run, he is 28 points behind in the polls and running sixth in the crowded field, he, a globalist, largely seen by the indigenous poor majority, representing approximately 50 percent of the population, as being an elitist, out of touch with their needs and thus generally disliked as a personality. He does exactly that, to Janes delight, when explaining hes not close to his son, but he wishes he was, with tears in his eyes. "Our Brand Is Crisis" is being released by Warner Bros., but was largely funded by Participant Media, which produces what it calls "socially relevant films and documentaries." In other words,. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here. There are very occasional crude sexual references. George Clooney and Grant Heslov produced. Rivera is on, holding two babies during a campaign stop, confessing how hes doubly lucky, and promises to run a positive campaign. Although Castillos populist opponent doesnt seem to have much integrity (the character does in the documentary), we still know that Castillo has less, that hes a dreadful man. ", "Toronto Review: Sandra Bullock Carries Our Brand Is Crisis", "Sandra Bullock Adds Gravity to Bolivian Political Satire", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Our_Brand_Is_Crisis_(2015_film)&oldid=1134072378, Tilda Del Toro as Pedro Castillo's secretary, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 22:01. Our Brand Is Crisis still could have been an excellent tale, but told through a soft prism of second chances and good intentions, we can't buy what Green is selling. All rights reserved. Send your questions or comments about this or any other spoiler to: THEMOVIESPOILER.com. She is approached by Candy, who tells her hes surprised shes working on an unwinnable campaign. But Boynton has done her own framing: This campaign is a precursor to tragedy. This movie offers us the tale of the fall and redemption of an unscrupulous white lady -- who we know cannot really be unscrupulous since shes Sandra Bullock. She explains its not relevant whether its true. David Gordon Greens uneven Wag the Dog-style satirical political romp takes both its title and theme from Rachel Boyntons 2005 documentary about the role played by the gun-for-hire American consultants in the 2002 Bolivian elections. Maybe its time to put it out to pasture. Both Bullock and Thornton portray Carvillesque characters (and the bald Thornton looks the part). Its only when the camera is on top of him that we see the pool of blood. As the site's Chief Film Critic, he has authored hundreds of reviews and covered major film festivals including the Toronto International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. Shes convinced to step up when she discovers the front-runner has hired consultant Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), her arch-nemesis. 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