Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)

Why so much hype?

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The worst protagonist's rival role I've ever seen. He's supposed to be a professional in his role, but I've not seen a single action to make me believe it. The only tactics I've seen in the movie are: 1) paying a random person to smash an egg on the head of a politian; 2) make your client say a quote that you heard from your rival 5 minutes before the press-conference (like, what the hell? seriously?). Another moment I wanted to quit watching the movie was during the racing of 2 buses - what was the point? to show your ass off (literally) to your rival? to ride off the cliff and kill the candidate and hole crew? Seriously, after that moment, I didn't take this movie seriously at all. There are moments I liked, but they are very few, and thus I don't think this movie deserved more than I'd rated.

MILD SPOILERSI had to see "Our Brand Is Crisis" because I've managed political campaigns before. It was as good and as bad as I thought it would be. Good, because it does indeed show how political campaigns are run, for the most part, but bad because it has a stupid, but predictable, ending, and a Left-leaning bias throughout - which I guessed correctly was coming, and simply chose to discount in my judgment of the film.Sandra Bullock starts off the film having abandoned the profession of political consulting because of a bad event we learn about later. Personal scumbag Billy Bob Thornton - who plays one in the film, too – is her capable adversary. Both are running presidential campaigns in Bolivia.Here's what rings true: the professional rivalries between consultants (who, nonetheless can be civil to one another) the scenes of actual campaigning, the strategies, families being divided by politics, the stress of campaigns, the fun people have during them anyway, the candidate who doesn't listen to his consultants, the backroom intrigue, and the dirty tricks.What's silly is the whining about money in politics (in the intro only, don't worry) and the fact that someone who's been in the business doesn't seem to know that people are mean or that politicians do, in fact, lie.Some of Bullock's lines are hilarious. How she pulls one over on the Thornton character before a big debate is brilliant. How she pulls back and listens in the beginning (though admittedly, she was ill) is exactly how one SHOULD start off a campaign before crafting and announcing a strategy. And the need to sometimes change strategies in mid-campaign is also well illustrated here.The scene where the two candidate's buses happen to be on the same road, leading to a hilarious "backside" joke, is just the kind of stunt campaigns pull on each other, and there are several "dirty tricks" shown as well that are MORE than plausible.Bullock's character, "Calamity Jane," shouldn't be as surprised and alienated by the process as is depicted here, given her long history in the profession. But in films about political consulting – like the excellent 1986 Richard Gere/Denzel Washington film "Power" which this resembles in many ways, which I highly recommend – sermonizing about how bad things can get and what's wrong with politics and managing campaigns is typical, and expected. But still, they manage to get a lot right, and it's nicely entertaining even if you aren't a political consultant, so I recommend it.

This movie was OK...watchable for the most part due to the usual good performances of Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton. An election in Bolivia (partially based on a true story) with behind the scenes goings-on of a professional organization dedicated to a successful campaign by instructing and molding the candidate (portrayed by Joaquim de Almeida).The movie really didn't have much of a "punch". The central subject was actually a very serious one, so the writers had few opportunities to slip in the Sandra Bullock type of humor. Possibly the problem is that so many have come to expect that elections are largely about manipulation so it's no surprise. Or maybe it's that this is the behavior we expect from so many politicians that we've come to accept and it's "no big deal".

Political consultant Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) had a mental breakdown and lives in seclusion. Nell (Ann Dowd), Buckley (Scoot McNairy), and Ben (Anthony Mackie) hire her to consult on the failing campaign of Pedro Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) as Bolivian President. He is a former leader who instigated harsh tactics and politics. She discovers old foe Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton) is running the leading candidate's campaign. She brings in LeBlanc (Zoe Kazan) to do opposition research.This movie wants to be a powerful statement against politics but is also trying to be a silly comedy. The fact that it's dealing with realistic world politics means that it needs to be more vicious. It needs to be darker. It needs to hit harder. The charismatic Bullock is stuck in no-woman's land. She is still compelling and fun although fun is not necessarily the needed adjective.