At a large debate with all the candidates, Jane is found behind the stage backdrop during the debate. They approach each other and she just smiles. Mick LaSalle is the film critic for the San . Its only when the camera is on top of him that we see the pool of blood. But the fact that it wants to also squeeze in a redemptive tale. Comedy-Drama. Inspired by the 2005 documentary of the . Jane next starts a rumor that Rivera is a Nazi, based on no real facts, but a fuzzy picture showing him with Nazi propaganda. Among the many achievements of HBOs Veep is its discovery of a new, post-Carville political consultant character, one thats just as cuttingly entertaining but truer to reality. The image of that boy haunts Our Brand Is Crisis, so that the U.S. strategists who do a bang-up job of getting the wrong man elected to the wrong place at the wrong time look like agents of catastrophe.. Smoke too much? Like before, it came from La Paz Grassroots, but this time it really did come from Candy. Since 2006, Bolivia has been governed by Evo Morales, the indigenous leader whose protest movement led to Gonis downfall. Rated R Policy doesnt even enter into the conversation; its more about scoring points by making your opponent look like a Nazi sympathizer simply by virtue of a doctored photograph. A graphic shows with 24 days left until the election, Castillo has 19% and Rivera has 30%. - Jane: It's like he killed himself rather than appear in our commercial.". As one of his first actions, he invites the IMF into Bolivia, thereby breaking his promise. But the filmmakers invent an antagonist of near-mythic stature to make her lust for a win: Billy Bob Thorntons Pat Candy, who works for the leading candidate. A screenshot shows Castillo at 8% with Rivera leading with 36%. They then shoot the head of the Rivera doll Candy had left, and it breaks his window. Our Brand Is Crisis is a sharp political comedy ostensibly based on Bolivia's 2002 presidential election. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. But once in Bolivia, shes sidelined by acute altitude sickness (the flight down is accompanied by a primer on the geography and general stressed disposition of the place), and hence unable to immediately show her Sun-Tzu-informed genius to uptight candidate Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida). His name is too long with her so she just calls him Eddie. Its pretty powerful, actually. Soon enough she is smoking, drinking, and scheming again, signaling to the viewer that shes back to her antiheroic winning ways. During the final debate, Bodine cites a quote in a conversation with Candy (knowing that he'll give it to rival candidate Rivera for his speech) saying that "a great man" said it. Finally, she meets with Castillo for their first conversation. 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. A shame, then, that the movie loses its cynical nerve with an utterly phoney finale that ties itself up in conscientious knots. 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. Janes voice is heard saying, If you dont like the road youre on, start paving a new one.. Castillo immediately punches the man. A lethally effective charm delivery system, Sandra Bullock doesn't need to do much to win you over. This is yet another film that could have been PG (maybe PG-13 due to a mooning scene) with a cleaner script. Our Brand Is Crisis (2015) Plot Showing all 5 items Jump to: Summaries (4) Synopsis (1) Summaries A battle-hardened American political consultant is sent to help re-elect a controversial president in Bolivia, where she must compete with a long-term rival working for another candidate. Calamity Jane Bodine (Bullock) was a vaunted political strategist, but the emotional toll of the campaigns coupled with substance abuse problems forced her into early retirement where she may not be happy, but shes grateful that shes calm. Castillo promises them that he will not invite the IMF without a public referendum. Jane is goaded by patronizing men into proving herself in ways shes not proud of. Right before the debate with the 3 leading candidates, Jane is sitting alone in the lecture hall, reading Faust by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, and is soon joined by Candy. The real meat of the comedy, and drama, comes in the ingenious dirty tricks that Candy and Bodine play on each other, which could kick off a primer on the political practice recently known as rat-f**king (although that phrase is never uttered in the film). Later shell claim he got the room intentionally to get under her skin. Underneath it all plays Ten Years Afters Id Love To Change The World, the absolute nadir of Woodstock-era protest rock; the movies sound editor deserves some kind of award for smoothly deleting the songs opening volley against dykes and fairies.. The villagers are angrily blocking the bus, and Castillo, against the wishes of Jane, gets off to talk with them. South Africa - DM Listen, 18 Dec Ramaphosa's Renew22 team decides to back Mabuyane over Lamola - When the Renew22 caucus met on Day 3 of the ANC's National Elective Conference, at least 2,400 delegates agreed to support Cyril Ramaphosa's bid for a second term as party president, with Oscar Mabuyane as his second in command. Politics takes to cynicism like shit to a cesspool. It is only the knowing, salty political consultant who can bridge the gap between political reality and tidy fictional narrative. The police arrive and the demonstration quickly turns into a riot. Ideology? Answer, Should Christians seek political power or should we only focus on evangelism? It is revealed that she retired after violating election laws. [8] On September 24, Ann Dowd joined the film. We just want to dive into a pool without having to hold onto our bottoms. Candy is outside the hotel in his chauffeur-driven SUV and offers Jane, Ben, and Nell a ride to the airport. You want to know how the Janes of the world happen. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. During the debate, Nell observes how charming Rivera is, while the team watches stage left. They plead with him that any negotiations with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) be preceded by a referendum so the people can decide. She spends the night in jail. Mimicking the behavior in the actresss previous film, Minions, Jane is shown mooning a bus. Before a campaign stop, Jane tells Eddie to help Castillo roll up his sleeves. Our Brand is Crisis may be director David Gordon Green's most sterile picture yet, but it's redeemed somewhat by Sandra Bullock's lead performance, as well as a talented ensemble cast . Reluctantly enlisted to help elect the unlikable bully Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), Jane gets the bit between her teeth when she discovers that her arch-rival, Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), is running the oppositions campaign. I get it -- Green and Straughan and Participant were trying to make a Sandra Bullock movie that Warner Bros. can put onto thousands of theater screens. Um, yes. It's a game that has a real impact on people's lives, but a game nonetheless. 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. In a restaurant, Jane sits alone until Candy sits next to her. [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. A timeline of the (alleged) drama involving Olivia Wilde, Harry Styles, and Florence Pugh. What makes this fictionalized Our Brand Is Crisis worth noticing to the extent it is, which isnt much is that the filmmakers probably believe they are delivering roughly the same message as Boyntons documentary did, but in fact the most important aspects of this striking story has been scrubbed away or laundered into Hollywood-style pseudo-psychological neutrality. Can Hollywood find a way to take the political consultant character in a new direction? The crisis, when it came . LeBlanc finds even more dirt on Rivera, but Jane tells her to focus everything on finding dirt on Castillo. Cut back to the interview that opened the film. Meanwhile, Thornton employs his well-honed smiling/sneering shtick to nicely nasty effect. 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 protest is growing in the city. Besser. In its best moments, Our Brand Is Crisis is reminiscent of Wag the Dog; it knows how fucked politics is and acts accordingly. The film starts with Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) being interviewed. All this makes for mid-grade entertainment value, at best. A llama is shown getting hit by a car. At another meeting with advisors, its revealed the crisis message is working, but not so well that it will win the election. Castillo has won the election. 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. Jane has accepted the offer and their plane lands in La Paz, Bolivia, which has an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. Its cute for a while. Principal photography began on September 29, 2014, in New Orleans, Louisiana. 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. [2/4], The effort by Our Brand Is Crisis director David Gordon Green and writer Peter Straughan to turn the 2005 documentary of the same name into a light comedy with touches of romance and political hijinks leave the fictional version a poor candidate in the box office race. But it seems as though screenwriter Peter Straughan and director David Gordon Green realized near the end that theyd written a feature-length film celebrating consultants ability to install a lying, oligarchic, IMF-beholden stooge to a South American presidency, and decided they ought to wrap things up more palatably. Candys played by Billy Bob Thornton, and his serpentine southern charm and minimalist tonsorial stylings suggest real-life political maven James Carville (and it is perhaps no accident that Thornton played a deep-fried political strategist in Primary Colors, too) who was in the aforementioned documentary. 17-Down, Three Letters: Party for One artist Carly ___ Jepsen. 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