Đánh giá our brand is crisis năm 2024

Our Brand Is Crisis features a great Sandra Bullock star turn in a comedic political romp that is more biting and cynical by virtue of how conventional it feels.

The Box Office:

Our Brand Is Crisis opens from Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. on October 30th. The David Gordon Green picture is a joint production between Participant Media, Smokehouse Pictures, and 360 Films. While I do not have an official budget, I am going to presume that this wasn't a barnburner in terms of costs. Producer George Clooney's less explicitly commercial propositions usually top out at $25 million, so no one goes nuts when they only open to around $13m. And like all-too-many films that arrive at this time of the year, the primary goal is chasing Oscar glory. In this case, Sandra Bullock is the key component of Warner's awards race, although she might find some unexpected competition within the studio as Charlize Theron will also get a Best Actress push for Mad Max: Fury Road.

As unconventional as such a nod would be, it is heartening to see a major studio with two genuine movie stars in outright starring roles competing for Oscar glory in a given year. It is no secret that the film was originally intended to star producer George Clooney before Bullock went fishing for male lead roles that could rewritten into females. And the box office prospects look not-too-dissimilar to George Clooney's artier starring vehicles. This isn't Gravity or even Burn After Reading. Think The American, The Men Who Stare At Goats, or The Ides of March. These cheaper and comparatively less commercial offerings snagged $10-$14 million debut weekends and ended up with around $25-$40m domestic with about that overseas as well.

The Review:

The most impressive thing about Our Brand Is Crisis is how deftly it balances a very specific tightrope. It is a loose adaptation of the 2005 documentary of the same name that dealt with American political operatives campaigning in a 2002 Bolivian presidential election. And it centers on a particular operator, played by Sandra Bullock, who was once the cream of the crop. Yet the film doesn't denigrate the other campaigners we meet along the way. It also doesn't have Bullock's "Calamity" Jane Bodine shock everyone by coming up with painfully obvious observations that are viewed with bewilderment by those around her. Nor does the film present the Bolivian populace as easily fooled and painfully gullible ignoramuses, or at least no more easily deceived than the current American electorate. In fact, the picture, in its offhand way, is a scathing indictment of how many of America's not-so-great ideas have made their way across the border as well at how much bread-and-circuses distractions we now accept as a key component to our political system.

First of all, David Gordon Green's film, based on Peter Straughen's screenplay (which is "suggested" by Rachel Boynton's documentary), is mostly lacking in melodrama. The picture mostly avoids the easy genre trappings of "Save the Cat" type screenwriting and keeps its keel even throughout. Oh sure there are moments of victory and defeat, as well as a revelation or two, but the film doesn't attempt to cram this unorthodox story into genre box until pretty close to the end. Yes, Ms. Bodine does have something of a character arc, but it feels natural and the film ends on a mostly logical and thoughtful note. But until that point, it is a procedural through and through. And if you're someone who enjoys watching the political sausage get made, it's quite entertaining.

We see Bodine being flown to Bolivia to help the struggling campaign of Pedro Gallo (Joaquim de Almeida) who is attempting to regain an office that he held and lost. His main competition is the hopeful Socialist candidate Victor Rivera, who is far more natural in a media-friendly age. The campaign and the film pick up steam when an altercation reveals a winning strategy, namely that Gallo should be the candidate of doom-and-gloom and the only man who can save Bolivia from its would-be "crisis." As Bodine correctly states, voters elect the newbie when they are hopeful, but fall back on the familiar when they are afraid. And that's pretty much the movie in a nutshell.

While some may complain that the film isn't overly satirical enough, I would argue that the picture is every bit as effective by playing out as relatively plausible and that the cynicism shows. Oh, it's not quite as over-the-top biting about its politics as Batman Returns or Bullworth, but the idea is the same. And dear lord, there has been no recent political comedy as gruesomely cynical as last year's Annie remake, but that's a conversation from last year. Our Brand Is Crisis is not about farce or theatrics, and the fact that the campaign shenanigans feel genuinely plausible, and very recognizable to this American political junkie, makes the picture sting just a little sharper.

You don't need me to remind you that our current political system is a glorified reality TV show competition about competing manufactured narratives and personality politics, and Our Brand Is Crisis doesn't hold your hand either. It accepts at face value that modern political campaigning is a superficial blood sport and goes from there. Bullock dominates the proceedings as expected, and I am happy that we may be getting to that point where we can stop pretending to be surprised by her talents. It's no secret that she joined the film after looking for male-centric material that could be rewritten, and it is to the movie's betterment if only for variety.

Billy Bob Thornton plays her arch rival in the campaign and politics overall, and he is surprisingly low-key and goes out of his way not to resemble James Carville. Their sparring sessions are entertaining, but they don't amount to much beyond some character details that are delivered elsewhere. Anthony Mackie gets one strong scene while Zoe Kazan (as a master at negative campaigning) gets a showy introduction but then gets nothing to do. I have to wonder how much of her we see on the deleted scenes reel. Maybe it's hidden in the same vault as Elizabeth Moss's Truth footage. Anyway, the film has a bleached and washed out look, although it's not remotely desaturated, courtesy of Tim Orr and the look adds to the scrappy, on-the-fly feel of this engaging little comedy.

I could have done without the moment involving speeding campaign buses, but the whole is worth the sum of its occasionally uneven parts. I appreciated the lack of over-the-top scandal or corruption, and I appreciated the biting notion that a presidential campaign with life-or-death consequences becomes something of a personal pissing match between two rivals, although the film makes the case that the bitterness is mostly one-sided. That it doesn't necessarily deserve all of the Oscars is no slight, even during this time of year, as once upon a time a movie like this would merely be a solid studio programmer. And in the wake of Pan and troubles with Tarzan, we should remember that Warner Bros. still puts out movies like this alongside the big swings. The potency of Our Brand Is Crisis is not rooted in attempting to be shocking or trailblazing, but rather in the notion that everything we see is basically accepted as "the way things are done."