My wife found the 2015 Sandra Bullock film Our Brand Is Crisis on HBO this week, so we watched it. Who doesn’t love Sandra Bullock?
The premise of the film is that in 2002, Bolivian politician Pedro Castillo hires an American political consulting firm to help him win the presidential election. The team recognizes that the candidate is not popular, so they reach out to Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock), a once well-known and talented campaign adviser to convince her to manage the campaign. Bodine has hit a rough patch, and is convinced to take the job when she learns her one-time nemesis Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton) is managing the campaign for the lead candidate.
The film’s title refers to the political strategists, who are brought in to fix a political campaign. The film is loosely based on James Carville and his one-time team of political strategists who were brought in to do the same for the 2002 Bolivian presidential election. This film’s team of strategists are trying to get Pedro Castillo elected, even though he’s basically in last place. Also, he’s kind of a non-nice person, so there’s this element of “What are we doing?”
How’s the film? Meh. There were aspects of the film that were mildly interesting, but it wasn’t a great film. Sandra Bullock was good, but the story didn’t grab me at all. It was whatever.
Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)