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. Violence: Moderate / Profanity: Heavy / Sex/Nudity: Moderate to heavys. [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. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Thats the problem with focusing a story on the diabolical strategist, the one mythical figure in this godforsaken political system whos got it all figured out. Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton go head to head as strategists in a patchy satire about the 2002 Bolivian elections. Back at Janes hotel, Ben calls and informs her there will be a protest downtown. 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. "Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders. But the fact that it wants to also squeeze in a redemptive tale is completely at odds with the work the protagonist is doing. Crisis management examples are easy to find these days: We've seen Uber lose 200,000 users in the wake of #DeleteUber and United lose $800 million in value in just a few hours. And in the real Bolivian election of 02, there was no rivalry between warring American spin doctors working for different candidates, because Goni was the only candidate who got that kind of help, in clear preference to his populist opponents on both the right and left. To handle this scandal, Castillo is interviewed on TV and explains it was a visit to his son, who IS a member of the cult, and he had to wear the robe. A screenshot shows Castillo at 8% with Rivera leading with 36%. It is revealed that she retired after violating election laws. She needs a cigarette, so she walks out the door into a large open foyer. There are 12 misuses of god, Jesus (1), Jesus Christ (1), hell (3) and d*mn (3). I have to rate it Offensive, due to its foul language, several blasphemies, and Sandra Bullocks bare hiny. George Clooney and Grant Heslov produced. In the mix is a fine supporting cast including a sensational Thornton . They talk about the book and Mephistopheles, with whom Faust makes a wager for his soul. Thornton is sleek, clammy, and leering. She quotes, It may be alright to have a power that is based on guns. The police arrive and the demonstration quickly turns into a riot. Its very obvious when shes going to do it, so it would be easy for viewers to close their eyes until all the yelling and laughter dies down. I need a majority. (R. 107 minutes.) Jane is so nauseous from her travel and the elevation she leaves and is heard throwing up. It also sets up a Hollywood ending that all but wrecks the movie. She doesnt think the man should change to fit the narrative but instead the narrative should change to fit the man. Jane is seen having a moment of introspection. Andrew O'Hehir is executive editor of Salon. Thanks for reading the spoiler. In David Gordon Green's OUR BRAND IS CRISIS, the film is obviously in existence to point out how politics, no matter the nation, are used in gaining votes from image rather than truth. [19] Additional filming occurred in Puerto Rico and Bolivia. That is now the title of the Bullock movie directed by indie-film veteran David Gordon Green and written by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), which is also set during a Bolivian presidential campaign and stars Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Scoot McNairy, Ann Dowd and Zoe Kazan as Bullocks rivals or colleagues in the Machiavellian business of reinventing candidates and reshaping public opinion. What makes the campaign more personal for her is that Pat Candy is working for Rivera--their professional and personal history goes all the way back to her first-ever political campaign. She may get some help in getting into the mindset of that indigenous poor through a campaign volunteer named Eddie, a Castillo loyalist since he was a young boy much to the chagrin of his friends. Eddie is delivering a framed photograph to now President-Elect Castillos Senate offices. Eduardo, a young volunteer of the Castillo campaign, is deeply impressed by this show of commitment. "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. The protagonist, Jane Bodine a.k.a. Covering Rammsteins Du Hast in Berlin. The 2005 Our Brand Is Crisis was the second documentary about Carvilles political work, following 1993s The War Room, in addition to Carvilles dramatic acting rsumand cable news career. A knock on the door reveals Eddie, saddened and angry, who tells her about the IMF plan. Have they learned nothing? I say, beat Candy because Jane doesnt really care that much about Castillo or Bolivia. Um, yes. 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 disillusioned Eduardo joins his brothers at a demonstration of people demanding change. The interviewer talks about his son. Throughout almost all of the film, Jane and her team use dirty manipulation to campaign for Castillo. In Bolivia, the situation is tense: Bodine learns that the indigenous people, who are a majority in the country but lack any real political power, are protesting for constitutional reform to get proper representation. Although she was once a wunderkind of the political strategy community, she lost her last four campaigns, the speculation that being the reason she dropped out of sight. There are too many balls in the air, too many uncontrollable outside factors, for any singular figure to get all of this under control, be 10 steps ahead of the curve, and successfully and confidently blaze a trail from pre-candidacy to election to dignified leadership. Candy can be seen watching the action in the background. Busy Phillips Is Not Like a Regular Mom, Shes a Cool Mom, Theres nothing wrong with Busy Phillips being cast as Mrs. George in the upcoming, In Search of Tom and Katies Bubba Painting, Maybe punting on the larger plot can be forgiven if we get a sweet. Goni was in effect the candidate of the Washington consensus, the guy who would bring a small, fractious and deeply divided country into the established international economic order. Preview", "Star-Driven Casualties 'Our Brand Is Crisis' & 'Burnt' At The B.O. Washed-up political strategist Jane Bodine is hired by a political consultancy to help their client, Senator Castillo, win the Bolivian general election. [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. Besser. . There is something deeply disturbing about American political strategists helping an unpopular politician return back to presidency in a country as different as Bolivia. I can barely imagine the humiliation! Mick LaSalle is the film critic for the San . SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. Gonis second term as president barely lasted a year, after his plans to allow an international consortium to build a pipeline and ship Bolivian natural gas to North America at dirt-cheap prices sparked a massive popular uprising. 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. When they get home, his brothers ridicule Eddie for bringing Yankees and trusting them, and for that matter, trusting Castillo. Before I address the message, Ill review the content. Even worse, it turns out to be a humanist, socialist, anti-capitalist message about "the people" rising up to establish some sort of vague communist brotherhood centered . However it is better and more gratifying to win the heart of a nation and keep it. Candy gives her a condescending compliment and tells her he plans to pleasure himself thinking about her when he returns home. The filmmakers and their stars have fun with the idea that politics is sex for those who want to keep their clothes on. Although the movie has flashes where everything comes together and we can revel in dark victories, more often than not, star Sandra Bullock is left to carry the crushing emotional and thematic weight of a confused picture that acknowledges that politics is a cheap joke, and then expects us all to laugh. There are very occasional crude sexual references. As one of his first moves as president, Morales unilaterally reversed the terms of Bolivias natural gas contracts with foreign corporations: Instead of the investors getting 82 percent of the profits and the Bolivian state getting 18 percent, it was suddenly the other way around. Read full review SEE ALL 35 REVIEWS User Score Write a Review 6.4 Positive: 23 (A heavy back story is subsequently revealed, followed by an ever heavier back story to the back story.) He cant reconcile that her success also makes her a bad person. Some of her pranks, specifically one ploy to feed her candidates unsuspecting competitor a Nazi quotation during the campaigns final debate, are good for a laugh. The poor reviews of Our Brand is Crisis are puzzling, since its one of the few non-documentary films to show successfully a) what rip-roaring fun politics can be when its only about marketing and b) what terrible things can happen when its only about marketing. Power? From there, Jane uses every trick at her disposal to try and beat Candy. It is revealed that she retired after violating election laws. 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. "Our Brand is Crisis" was one of these pleasant surprises. 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. She cares about winning, and the movie reinforces the narrative that politics is just a game. 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. Jane tells him this is the way of politics, and its not her job to solve problems after the election. They make a sling shot out of clothes and shoot something that splatters against Candys window across the foyer. But the main mystery to me was the message of this film. He is a crook. Vanessa Bryant Settles Helicopter-Crash Photo Lawsuit for $28.85 Million. Is it money? One woman says he has a weird smile. When Bodine realizes that she brought a liar into office, she has the car stopped and leaves to join Eduardo. 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. The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. Thankfully, were usually too wrapped up in Bullocks great performance to mind the films cognitive dissonance. Politics is a dirty business, but Our Brand Is Crisis doesn't stick its hands into the muck sufficiently to be as entertaining or stinging as it could be. January 14, 2016. Candy is outside the hotel in his chauffeur-driven SUV and offers Jane, Ben, and Nell a ride to the airport. [11], Principal photography on the film began on September 29, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana, using 35mm film. Like before, it came from La Paz Grassroots, but this time it really did come from Candy. When it does, Jane moons the Rivera bus. ***END SPOILER***. Castillo wins the vote by a small margin. She can quote appropriate nuggets of wisdom from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and from the world's leaders and thinkers. Jane and her team had no idea he would do that. There is only one wrong thing to do, she says: Losing. 2023's Most Anticipated Sequels, Prequels, and Spin-offs. What are you going to do? and then leaves. Theres no redemption to be found with the people who are ruining liveswho have no belief in politicians or voters; people who have basically given up on humanity and play with public policy like a kid with a loaded gun. 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. He overhears him making plans to visit the IMF in New York, and is crestfallen. Cyril Ramaphosa's ANC Renew22 grouping believes Eastern Cape . Cut back to the interview that opened the film. Some said it was insightful. And while the role of Calamity Jane smacks of Sandra Bullocks brandingthe smart but painfully self-conscious klutz whos also a depressiveits a complicated, maybe even feminist shtick. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. Jane yells out the window to Candy that Rivera has dropped 6 points. Now, the film is so heavily fictionalized that it's much more an emotive or thematic . Calamity Jane (Sandra Bullock), has been lured out of retirement by gobs of money and a challenge: Can she convince the Bolivian people to elect as president an unpopular, arrogant, cigar-chomping oligarch named Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida)who was already president once and bungled the job? She reveals she has had mental issues before and suffered from depression. Filmcast "Our Brand is Crisis" November 6, 2015 Laura Seaman Features , Filmcast , Movies [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Join Laura Seaman as she reviews " Our Brand is Crisis " and previews " Spectre " and " The Peanuts Movie " on this week's episode of Filmcast. Carvilles troops were dispatched to La Paz in 02 to consolidate the great victory of liberalism and democracy as they and their sponsors and benefactors understand those things and to resist the rising tide of Latin American leftism represented in Bolivia by the indigenous political leader Evo Morales, Gonis leading opponent. Jane is on the set but is only seen in the background on a lounge chair, still looking unwell. The reality of U.S. politics is dominated not so much by incompetent leaders as mortals who lack the requisite superpowers needed to steer the ship of state. 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