Our Brand is Crisis is based on the 2005 documentary of the same name, which followed the participation of James Carville's consulting firm in the 2002 Bolivian campaign for president. Here, Sandra Bullock plays Jane Bodine, a fictionalized version of Carville, called out of semi-retirement, following a declining career as a campaign manager. Like Carville, she accepts the challenge to manage the presidential campaign of Pedro Castillo, a former president who leans to the right on the political spectrum. Bodine's nemesis, Pat Candy (portrayed as deeply cynical in Billy Bob Thornton's performance) represents the populist candidate, Rivera, who is way ahead at the beginning of the campaign in a three-way race.
Sandra Bullock is a little better here in some of her previous comic roles (e.g. The Proposal, The Heat), as the initially burnt out Bodine, only engaging in her usual pratfalls (this time it's throwing up all over the place after arriving in Bolivia), at the beginning of the film, and later settling down as a determined strategist, who eventually outfoxes her aforementioned nemesis, Pat Candy.
How far will Bodine go in manipulating the public's view of Castillo? This is essentially what keeps our interest as the narrative progresses to the climax—the results of the campaign for president. First Bodine notes that Castillo, with his flat demeanor, is unable to make a personal connection to the electorate. Eventually she softens him up so that he appears to be more emotionally accessible. The team concludes that Castillo must sell the idea to the Bolivian people that the country is in a "crisis," and Castillo is just the man to fix the dire problems facing the country.
Bodine urges Castillo to adopt smear tactics against his opponent but the high-minded candidate refuses. It's only after Rivera smears Castillo regarding a long-ago extra-marital affair that Castillo relents and allows Bodine to adopt similar tactics. One of those strategies involves publicizing a photo of Rivera, with a Nazi war criminal, standing in the background.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the film occurs when rocks are thrown at Castillo's campaign bus, forcing it to stop in a small town, where angry indigenous people are protesting the possibility that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may be allowed into the country. Castillo gets out of the bus and confronts the protesters—promising that the IMF will not be accepted without a referendum.
There is also a sub-plot involving Eduardo, a campaign volunteer, who feels connected to Castillo, since a photo was taken of him and the former president on the earlier campaign trail, when he was a child. Eduardo's family members don't share his enthusiasm for Castillo and castigate him for his allegiance to the right-wing candidate.
As the film's antagonist, Pat Candy has little screen time, and his confrontations with Bodine mainly amount to a series of conversations that are well-written but don't raise any stakes. The most dramatic of these interactions between the two campaign managers occurs when Bodine tricks Candy into having his candidate reference a quotation attributed to Goebbels, Hitler's vile propaganda minister.
When Castillo finally wins the election by the slimmest of margins, he goes back on his promise to hold a referendum on the IMF, alienating even Eduardo, one of his most ardent supporters. And Bodine, after informing Eduardo that she wasn't responsible for Castillo's deception regarding his campaign promise, later joins him in an unlikely show of solidarity with the people she worked against during the campaign.
Our Brand is Crisis is thoroughly watchable despite a dearth of big dramatic moments and a significant antagonist that propels the action forward. It has been said that the film lost money because it was inaccurately billed as a comedy. Maybe so, but this dramedy is worth at least one look.
