Review: Our Brand is Crisis

All the rabid dogs in the world could not inject any bite in Our Brand is Crisis, David Gordon Green's would-be political satire that tests the boundaries of flaccidity. Based on Rachel Boynton's 2006 documentary of the same name, this mess of a film squanders Sandra Bullock's sterling performance as 'Calamity' Jane Bodine, a role originally written for a man (producer George Clooney was initially attached to star and direct).

Political strategist Jane is reluctantly lured out of her self-imposed seclusion by campaign consultants Nell and Ben (Ann Dowd and Anthony Mackie), who believe she can turn the tide around for their man in Bolivia. Their man is Pedro Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) and he is a whopping 28 points behind the frontrunner, but no one has resurrected more dead horses than Jane so she may be the miracle worker Castillo and his team have been looking for. Jane heads to Bolivia with Nell, Ben and Rich (Scoot McNairy) to meet with Castillo, an elitist whose former presidency was marred by corruption and broken campaign promises.

Nauseated by the altitude, Jane is in no condition to offer any advice. Worse than that, she lacks the wherewithal. Not even the knowledge that her longtime rival, Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), has been hired by the competition can rouse her from her depressive state. Screenwriter Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) would have been wise to re-focus the film on the mind games between the opposing strategists. The scenes between Bullock and Thornton have a sharpness of focus that the rest of the film is missing. Judging from Thornton's lascivious performance, there may be more than mere political history at play between Jane and Candy.

What finally ignites Jane into action is an odd incident that has a local man smashing an egg on Castillo's head. Castillo, in turn, responds with a punch. While the team defaults to damage control mode, Jane is whirring back to monstrous life. No apologies, she instructs Castillo. Don't change the man to fit the narrative, Jane says, change the narrative to fit the man. Citing the "Daisy" commercial that painted Barry Goldwater as the candidate who would precipitate a nuclear war if made president, Jane convinces Castillo to stop asking people to love him and to embrace the power of being feared. If his political rivals are bellowing on about Bolivia's fragile democracy and economy, then Castillo will scare the people into believing that the country is in crisis and that he is the only one with the cojones to save the day.

At one point in the film, the rival campaign buses engage in a cliffside game of chicken. There's a great deal of yelling and nonsensical yammering inside the shaky structures, and then Jane moons Candy. Much of Our Brand is Crisis works in this vein. Perhaps audiences have been spoiled by Armando Iannucci's incisive and hilariously caustic The Thick of It and Veep, or even the melodramatic grandstanding of Shonda Rhimes' Scandal, but the dirty campaigning and strategical one-upmanship in Green's film comes off as nothing more than white noise. There isn't anything here that hasn't been done before and done better - one only need search out Duck Soup, The Mouse That Roared or Bulworth to watch a more pointed and funny skewering of the political process.

Our Brand is Crisis

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Written by: Peter Straughan; based on the documentary by Rachel Boynton

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Joaquim de Almeida, Ann Dowd, Scoot McNairy, Zoe Saldana