While Rivera is still speaking aboard a train, Jane poses as a worker for the Rivera campaign and tells the conductor the speech is over. Jane insist they go negative in spite of this, but Castillo says no. 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. Jane says it will be an honor. She pulls from her bag the pottery bowl that Ben was admiring in the first scene, and hands it to him before climbing out of the car. Jane is on the set but is only seen in the background on a lounge chair, still looking unwell. Jane says There is only one wrong in this, and that is losing. But at the end, the team realizes how wrong they werein a shocking way. But theres no real fun in determining the extent to which this movie is some sort of a clef expos. Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton go head to head as strategists in a patchy satire about the 2002 Bolivian elections. Its nun versus AI in Damon Lindelofs new series. Smoke too much? We just want to dive into a pool without having to hold onto our bottoms. : What The Hell Happened? During the debate, Nell observes how charming Rivera is, while the team watches stage left. In a restaurant, Jane sits alone until Candy sits next to her. I have to rate it Offensive, due to its foul language, several blasphemies, and Sandra Bullocks bare hiny. [21] It had a wide release in 2,202 theaters for 21 days. He resides in Atlanta with his wife and their dog Jack. [10] On October 13, 2014, Participant Media announced that they would co-finance the film with Warner, while Jeffrey Skoll and Jonathan King would executive produce, along with Bullock and Stuart M. Finally, she meets with Castillo for their first conversation. Others discuss plans but Jane is silent. They plan to frighten the people, with the aim of persuading them to vote for the unsympathetic but known Castillo rather than the younger opposition candidates. It already has. She is unable to breath and is using an oxygen mask on the car ride to campaign headquarters. Its pretty powerful, actually. [20], In July 2015, Warner Bros. scheduled the film for an October 30, 2015 release, during the awards season. The last movie I reviewed was Burnt, which was called a comedy by many, but I found it not to be a comedy at alljust a drama with occasional humor. Mick LaSalle is the film critic for the San . [2/4], Sandra Bullock is the best part of this wobbly farce As a look at the state of the art of political campaigning (in the US as well as in Bolivia), Our Brand Is Crisis does not cut particularly deep and the ending isnt great. Sometimes the portrayal is satiricalRobert DeNiros spin doctor in Wag the Dog, the assassin-like Dylan McDermott in The Campaign, the sex-addicted Kathryn Hahn in televisions Parks and Recreation. Goni fled the country five days later, and now lives in exile in the U.S., which has refused to extradite him to Bolivia to face trial for extrajudicial killings and other crimes against humanity. There are very occasional crude sexual references. Her words are intercut with footage of newspaper headlines and, oddly, shots of Bullocks hands molding clay at a pottery wheel. Eddie is delivering a framed photograph to now President-Elect Castillos Senate offices. They talk about the book and Mephistopheles, with whom Faust makes a wager for his soul. Castillo promises the people that will happen if hes elected. When Bullocks passionately advocating goes negative, or Thorntons smirkingly plays Mephistopheles to her from across their hotel balconytheyre close enough to speak to each other directly, but insist on staying on their cell phonesthe movie builds up an infectious energy. The Unloved, Part 111: Devil in a Blue Dress, Female Filmmakers in Focus: Cauleen Smith on Drylongso, True Lies Fails to Capture the Charm of the James Cameron Original, Berlinale 2023 Highlights, Part Two: Reality, Manodrome, The Adults, Inside, Golda. Jane tells him this is the way of politics, and its not her job to solve problems after the election. A llama is shown getting hit by a car. Janes voice is heard saying, If you dont like the road youre on, start paving a new one.. There is something deeply disturbing about American political strategists helping an unpopular politician return back to presidency in a country as different as Bolivia. Well, this is the rambunctious comedy version of Our Brand Is Crisis, framed by director David Gordon Green and the British writer Peter Straughan not with a dead boy but the personal odyssey of a fictional character. Instead of superhuman strength or projectile spider-webs, this puppet master has in her arsenal a penchant for drinking and smoking, instant access to the perfect quip at the perfect time, and a convenient lack of morality. What part should morality play in politics? At another meeting with advisors, its revealed the crisis message is working, but not so well that it will win the election. The police arrive and the demonstration quickly turns into a riot. He overhears him making plans to visit the IMF in New York, and is crestfallen. I need a majority. The train begins to leave and Candy is furious. 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. A bus race ensues around dangerous bends and cliffs. But the main mystery to me was the message of this film. Billy Bob Thornton employs his well-honed sneering shtick and Sandra Bullock makes the role her own in Our Brand Is Crisis. Since The War Room, the omnipotent, omniscient celebrity political consultant has been portrayed again and again. The front-runner, Victor Rivera, is a populist who is appealing to the basest emotions of that poor electorate. [27] Peter Debruge from Variety thought that Jane Bodine, played by Bullock, "is easily one of the best female roles of the last 10 years,"[28] while Benjamn Lee from The Guardian wrote that "Bullock seems blissfully unaware of the films faults and delivers a performance that expertly plays on her strengths - her comic timing, wasted in lesser, plane-ready comedies, is on top form and she imbues her neurotic character with more than the thinly sketched quirks provided on the page; she commands a room when needed, perfects scenes of physical comedy and even turns a climax of forced sentiment into something poignant and believable"; he concluded that "while the film is patchy, Bullock's brand is confidently crisis-free". Eduardo, a young volunteer of the Castillo campaign, is deeply impressed by this show of commitment. An young actress expresses concern with her part in the ad, which requires her to be caught by Castillo. Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton go head to head as strategists in a patchy satire about the 2002 Bolivian elections. Our Brand is Crisis was released across all major streaming and cable platforms on Tuesday, January 19, 2016. The American consultants, not knowing the language or the culture of Bolivia, are persuaded by Bodine, a burned out veteran of American politics, to follow a strategy of smear campaigning to make up for their candidate's shortcomings. When the gunfire stops, the camera moves in on a boy sitting on the steps of a building, his head partly covered by his coat as if hes grabbing a nap. Old colleague Nell (Ann Dowd) brings young idealistic Ben (Anthony Mackie) up to the woods to coax Jane down to Bolivia, to manage the presidential campaign of a conservative senator whose prior stint as head of that country was pretty authoritarian. The campaign believes Castillo should apologize as soon as possible but Jane disagrees. Jane expresses to Ben that she still gets nauseous whenever she sees Castillo. They then shoot the head of the Rivera doll Candy had left, and it breaks his window. Honestly, I didnt know what to expect, on a number of levels. The message I got from this movie was very positive. In addition, there are 20+ f-words, s-words (19), and one each of a**, SOB, p*ssed, p*ssy, b*stard, b***h, tw*t, cr*p, and t*rd. She realizes that she was deceived by Castillo, just like she was attempting to deceive the people of Bolivia. NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jason. At another commercial set inside a warehouse, several llamas are there, and Castillo is set to compare the future of Bolivia with llamas, who work hard. It is considered to be the most important process in public relations." Can Hollywood find a way to take the political consultant character in a new direction? The movie opens with a title sequence regarding the main character Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) and her rise and fall from hotshot political strategist/image . 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.. Castillo tells her she needs professional help for wanting to do anything to win. [3], The film opened on October 30, 2015, alongside Burnt and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. February 27, 2023. 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. Soon enough she is smoking, drinking, and scheming again, signaling to the viewer that shes back to her antiheroic winning ways. Meanwhile, Thornton employs his well-honed smiling/sneering shtick to nicely nasty effect. Jane insists to the campaign team that this was set up by Candy. At the start, Jane has been out of the consulting game for several years, following a traumatic mayoral race. By Manohla Dargis. She needs a cigarette, so she walks out the door into a large open foyer. . Karen Kunawicz. On a table she finds a Rivera doll. Throughout almost all of the film, Jane and her team use dirty manipulation to campaign for Castillo. Candy reveals it was him (via a friend of a friend) who anonymously suggested to the Castillo campaign to hire Jane. There just arent enough cigarettes or bottles of Scotch in the world to give any political consultant the power that we, in our fits of frustration, guiltily wish they had. In my review of the documentary, I wrote: The process of framing Goni to look like something he isnt could be the stuff of a rambunctious campaign comedy like Primary Colors or, for that matter, the documentary The War Room And parts of Our Brand Is Crisis are darkly amusing. When it does, Jane moons the Rivera bus. January 14, 2016. More fliers are discovered that claim (with pictures) Castillo is a member of a crazy white-robe wearing cult. 2023's Most Anticipated Sequels, Prequels, and Spin-offs. She showed how American marketing techniques never before used in that region steered a desperate country towards a rich, arrogant former president Gonzalo Snchez de Lozada (Goni), who proved catastrophically out of touch. The study of crisis management originated with large-scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980s. [6] On September 15, Billy Bob Thornton joined the film,[7] and on September 18, Anthony Mackie joined the cast. In a Netflix comedy by Katharine McPhees stepdaughter. Facing a general strike and a series of confrontations between soldiers and protesters that left at least 67 civilians dead, Goni imposed martial law in October 2003, and the U.S. State Department issued a statement offering its full support. Entertaining and provocative, Our Brand Is Crisis is a satirical political drama. The interviewer says shes been known by many names, most notably Calamity Jane. But when youre reviewing a political drama, you have to be careful to pay close attention. 17-Down, Three Letters: Party for One artist Carly ___ Jepsen. However, Castillo refuses to give permission for the team to do so. Terms of Service apply. Back at the hotel room, Jane is with Eddie and his brothers, ordering room service and still drunk. The emotional investment Green wants to make in Jane feels misplaced, especially since he also wants to celebrate moments when she behaves abhorrently. All rights reserved. Um, yes. Our Brand Is Crisis. 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. Its also revealed that Candy is the one who ran over the llama during the commercial shoot. 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. That's true even in "Our Brand Is Crisis," a . Beyond needing to adjust to her relocation to La Paz however temporary, Jane knows that she has to transform the thinking of the populace to making them want Castillo as their leader as opposed to changing Castillo to something he inherently is not. 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. The Weeknd responded to a Rolling Stone story claiming the show is a rape fantasy with a clip of his character calling the mag irrelevant. 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. Candy says he will be going to overseas for a British campaign. [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. When Bodine realizes that she brought a liar into office, she has the car stopped and leaves to join Eduardo. 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). Washed-up political strategist Jane Bodine is hired by a political consultancy to help their client, Senator Castillo, win the Bolivian general election. Ben (Anthony Mackie) and Nell (Ann Down) are driving in the snowy mountains (between the mountains, as Jane later corrects them) discussing their plan to sway Jane to work for the campaign of Pedro Castillo, a Senator in Bolivia who is running for President. The cinematic trope has retroactively kept a light on devilish George H.W. They are then in a restaurant, the entire campaign team drinking heavily. Nell explains that Castillos opponent, Rivera, has hired her old arch nemesis, Pat Candy (played by Billy Bob Thornton). From that day on, she says, our brand is crisis.. Let me know how that goes. Jane then joins the mass of people who are walking toward the city. While Castillo is meeting with the press, Jane meets Eduardo. 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