Cast: This is an odd collection. Sandra Bullock is front and center. Then there's a "who's available" collection of supporting actors including Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Spanish Geoffrey Rush Joaquim de Almeida, Ann Dowd, Scot McNairy, and Zoe Kazan.
Plot: Jane (Bullock) is a disgraced former campaign strategist who is brought into a Bolivian presidential election at the last minute to somehow get her candidate (de Almeida) the win.
Thoughts:
Some movies try to do everything. To mix a bunch of genres and story beats into one coherent movie. When it's done well, the results are a "greater than the sum of their parts" experience (Forrest Gump, for example). When it's not working, all those pieces negate each other. Our Brand is Crisis is very much the latter case.
By far, the movie is the strongest when it's trying to be an underdog comedy. Sandra Bullock gets many opportunities to do slapstick (including one scene which pulled almost directly from Miss Congeniality). Director David Gordon Green is flexing muscles that he hasn't used since Pineapple Express or Your Highness and it's a lot of fun.
The next best part is the political strategy story. I find elections fascinating. I'd waste hours playing a well made video game about winning an election if such a thing existed. The sixth and seventh seasons of The West Wing are like candy for me. The gamesmanship between Bullock and Thornton in this is a delight. The unavoidable consequence of the premise of the movie is that so much of the public side of the election is in Spanish. Subtitles are normally fine, but an election can be lost with a single turn of phrase in a debate or campaign speech that is lost in translation. Often, I had to settle for the broad strokes rather than the small tweaks on a moment, which was disappointing.
This badly wants to be taken seriously though, and that's what was most problematic. The big revelation in the movie is that these elections have real consequences. First of all, no duh. Secondly, they make that point several times throughout. So, when they get to the end and treat it as a revelation, it's out of place.
Elephant in the Room: Does anyone in the cast stand out? Bullock is absolutely the first choice for her role and it plays to a lot of her strengths. Billy Bob Thornton, while underused, is perfect as a sleazy, morally ambivalent character. Mackie makes his character work, but I can't imagine that he's the person they had in mind in the script. I actually enjoyed Kazan a lot, even though she's basically Manic Pixie Dream Lisbeth Salander. I did like Reynaldo Pacheco, who plays a young Bolivian supporter of Bullock's guy. I'd like to see him in more things.
To Sum Things Up:
Our Brand is Crisis is enjoyable enough for most of the run and it's easy to ignore the parts that don't work. Bullock and Thornton are well cast. I don't recommend seeing it, but I wouldn't say you need to avoid it either.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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