In 2009, Warner Bros. scored a touchdown with Sandra Bullock, the actress earning an Oscar for “The Blind Side”. Four years later, they soared together again, Bullock snagging a nomination for her work in “Gravity”. Can this team go three for three with the political dramedy “Our Brand Is Crisis”? Well, early results are not promising.
Bullock plays “legendary” campaign strategist Jane Bodine. We meet first her as she’s being interviewed, and the film is actually done in flashback, which is totally unnecessary. Burned-out from the political game, Bodine’s been living in a cabin in the woods for six years, making pottery. Two members of a team running a campaign for a candidate in the Bolivian Presidential Election find and convince her to help them get Senor Castillo elected.
Castillo was actually el presidente 15 years ago, but that didn’t go too well (apparently he had a lot of the citizens killed). So both he and Jane (a lover of quotable quotes) are desperately looking for comebacks, though their stories are not parallel.
Things take an all-too “Hollywood” turn with the entrance of Pat Candy – the campaign manager for an opposing candidate who’s the current leader in the polls. Candy is played by Billy Bob Thornton, in a typical Billy Bob Thornton role. He and Jane have gone head-to-head several times in the past, and he’s always beaten her. This time we watch him pop in and out of scenes for some cinematic trash talk, but never actually do much of anything involving his own campaign.
My numbers show that about 75% of “Our Brand Is Crisis” doesn’t work. There have been so many election movies with similar storylines, and there’s little fresh here, especially when it comes to saying anything new or remotely interesting about the political system. And attempts to blend in comedy all misfire. There’s a campaign bus race scene through the Bolivian mountains that doesn’t belong in this (or any other) movie, with Bullock dropping her pants and showing-off her Buttocks. And even when it tries to be dramatic, the script suffers from a lack of believability and some really corny dialogue.
As for Bullock’s performance, award-season voters won’t need to consider her this time around because she likely won’t be on any ballots. She tries her best, delivering a handful of effective speeches, and her bitter exchanges with Thornton did keep me from dozing off. There are a few scenes late that do add some meat to the otherwise sparkle-free story. But there’s no debating the fact that someone should have realized this movie was in crisis long before it got to the screen.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Our Brand Is Crisis” gets a C-.
Running Time: 107 min.