Brilliant Bullock fails to elevate bland 'Brand'
Sandra Bullock has a strong shot at an Oscar nomination for her committed performance in David Gordon Green's muddled political comedy "Our Brand is Crisis."
She plays American political campaign strategist Jane Bodine as a wounded soul, a soured idealist comically and seriously encumbered by life's curveballs.
As Jane, Bullock blends cynicism with pathos, humor with vulnerability. It would be a perfect role for George Clooney, who actually had dibs on it until he opted to only serve as a producer on this project.
A keen question posed by this turn of events: Would Bodine's character have been as troubled and textured had it been written for a woman?
"Our Brand is Crisis" opens and closes with a subdued Bodine being interviewed for some kind of TV show or documentary.
We don't know by whom, or why.
By the final credits, the interview turns out to be just a gimmick, an easy way for Peter Straughan to frame his screenplay with a gratuitous device adding nothing significant but running time.
(My guess would be that the superfluous doc element is Straughan's nod to Rachel Boynton's "Our Brand is Crisis," a 2005 documentary on the 2002 Bolivian presidential election that inspired this fictionalized story. Nice gesture, but a narrative nuisance.)
Green's movie begins with Bodine - nicknamed "Calamity Jane" for her explosive style - hunkered down in an isolated cabin where she's apparently been recovering from some sort of personal trauma or breakdown.
Two campaign consultants, Ben and Nell (Anthony Mackie and Ann Dowd), come knocking with a plea for Bodine to help them accomplish a seemingly impossible task: getting Bolivia's unpopular ex-president Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) elected president again.
Castillo struggles in the polls with a mere 8 percent support, compared to a consistent 30-plus percent support for his leading opposition, an articulate, populist candidate named Rivera (Louis Arcella).
Bodine succumbs to the consultants' pleas. Next stop, she arrives in Bolivia where she trips and almost falls down the jet plane steps. (Why do screenwriters think women falling down is so funny? It never quite works.)
With her nerves a-jitter, her hair frazzled and her digestive system in an uproar, Bodine makes a bad impression for her personality-challenged, out-of-touch client Castillo. She can barely function in the high-altitude country where she constantly sucks on an oxygen mask to stay alert.
What really takes her breath away is that Rivera has hired strategist Pat Candy, an old rival she thoroughly despises, even though he's probably the only person on earth who understands her.
It's hardly a stretch for Billy Bob Thornton to play Candy, a sleazy, misogynistic manipulator who has beaten Bodine in every previous campaign they've waged against each other.
(A one-time affair further complicates their weirdly codependent relationship.)
With Candy in the mix, "It's personal," as Bodine puts it. The gloves come off.
Despite Bullock igniting the booster rockets with a forceful, immersive performance, "Our Brand is Crisis" comes off as an awkward blend of heavy satire and contrived personal redemption.
“Our Brand is Crisis”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Joaquim de Almeida, Anthony Mackie, Ann Dowd
Directed by: David Gordon Green
Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated R for language, sexual references. 108 minutes