– Film Review by Cate Marquis –
‘Our Brand Is Crisis’ highlights political campaign hijinx
Sandra Bullock stars as a political campaign consultant hired by a Bolivian candidate running for president. Under her mix of message massaging and Karl Rove-type dirty tricks, she does everything she can to get her candidate in office, regardless of who he is or what he might actually do once elected. Not her job.
Based on a documentary about a real election, “Our Brand Is Crisis” is being marketed as a comedy. It is not, although it has moments of humor, especially the ironic kind. The film actually is more like “Argo,” producers Grant Heslov and George Clooney’s previous film. Bullock’s character Jane Bodine, nicknamed Calamity Jane, is a relentless gun-for-hire campaigner, known for her innovative ideas, although her results are mixed. Billy Bob Thornton plays her real adversary, Pat Candy, the consultant for the race’s front-runner, a populist who is promising a greater voice for the country’s large American Indian population. Jane’s candidate is a disgraced ex-president, a wealthy man with ties to the IMF who is anything but populist.
Jane actually is not concerned with who her candidate is or what he stands for – all that matters is finding a hook to sell him. She finds it in his hot-temper, crafting a message of him as the tough guy needed to deal with the “crisis,” the brand they sell to voters.
Bullock does a nice job as the bright, ethically-challenged, emotionally-conflicted Jane. At the film’s start, she is living as a virtual hermit, making pottery she claims have mystical powers, until she is lured out by the chance to defeat her longtime rival Candy (Thornton). That is the contest that matters to Jane. As Candy, Thornton looks like political operator/commentator James Carville but speaks in calm, seductive, devilish tones, flirting with Bullock’s Bodine non-stop.
The campaign in this film plays out fast and wild, like a high-stakes sports contest. There is a breathtaking level of chilling cynicism as these American spin masters bring to the ruthless ugliness of U.S. politics to Bolivia. Were this just fiction, the extremes to which these political consultants go could be dismissed as Hollywood going over the top. But this story is based on real people and a country that had to grapple with the results of a real election.
Through most of the film, it shines a harsh spotlight what these campaign types have done here in the U.S. and how this toxic sludge is being exported. The switch at the end might be factual but comes across a bit as if it redeems what went before, which, of course, it cannot.
“Our Brand Is Crisis” is an intriguing if flawed film that might just fuel thought as we sink into our own presidential campaign.
