Our Brand Is Crisis **** (2015, Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Reynaldo Pacheco) – Movie Review

Producer Sandra Bullock casts herself excitingly as an unstoppable political spin doctor in director David Gordon Green’s totally gripping and engrossing real-life story set in Bolivia in 2002.

Bullock plays battle-hardened American political consultant Jane who is brought in to help re-elect a controversial president in Bolivia, Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), who is miles behind in the polls. He’s desperate – so desperate he has to listen to her. While there, Jane finds herself bitterly up against her long-term rival and her arch nemesis Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), who is working for the leading candidate in the election, Victor Rivera (Louis Arcella). They have history and it’s personal.

Candy is willing to indulge in all manner of dirty tricky to win, and Jane can gleefully match suit. Of course Jane’s got people on her team, and an engagingly quirky lot they are – Ben, Nell, Buckley and LeBlanc (Anthony Mackie, Ann Dowd, Scoot McNairy and Zoe Kazan). Jane’s also soon got a nice, earnest local kid on her side, (Reynaldo Pacheco), who she calls Eddie. The boy, it turns out, is going to make all the difference, providing the moral dimension that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the political campaign.

Our Brand Is Crisis is a thoroughly enjoyable, satisfying movie with a lot of laughs as well as a great deal of drama and of course lots of political points to make. It’s a movie that’s about something (and something quite important) and entertaining at the same time, so that’s good, huh?

Bullock’s character is so bullish that this may put her fans off, leading to reduced box office, but it’s good to see her stretching her acting muscles and not simply playing funny or cute or even sympathetic as usual. She makes a fine anti-heroine, there is fine ensemble acting from all the cast, and this is a fine little movie that deserved to come out in awards season and garner some awards.

Peter Straughan’s screenplay is based on a documentary by Rachel Boynton.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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