Film Review: Sandra Bullock Bombs in Bad ‘Our Brand is Crisis’

Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 30, 2015 - 8:18am

CHICAGO – This misbegotten political satire shows almost as much contempt for its audience as its characters do for the politicians they’re supposed to be helping. This movie thinks it is smartly cynical, but it’s about as smart as a Larry the Cable Guy routine at a Donald Trump rally. Hate is not a big enough word for how I felt about this movie. I loathed, detested, scorned, despised, and abhorred this Hollywood abomination, that is so full of its own smug satisfaction it can’t see how dumb it really is.

Rating: 0.5/5.0

Sandra Bullock plays a legendary political spinmeister nicknamed “Calamity” Jane who is introduced living a sober and solitary life in a cabin in the mountains, making pottery. She is summoned out of self imposed retirement to turn around the sputtering campaign of a Bolivian politician, but the game is rigged in her favor. Bullock sets up her character’s lists of phobias, depressions, and obstacles and then proceeds to completely ignore them for half the movie as she seeks a political comeback and score against an old rival Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), who is managing her Bolivian rival. The film makes a point that she hates crowds and can’t stand people touching her. So what is she doing in just about the very next scene? She’s going into crowded bars and touching every hand in sight.

When Bullock arrives the film tries to make its candidate and his campaign seem hopeless. He’s an educated former president who has returned to the country to run again. He’s down in the polls by 28 points, and downright unlikeable, especially compared to Thornton’s young up- and-coming candidate, who promises the change so many people say they want. But all that changes when Bullock flips the switch and goes into the same condescending this-is-the-way-it’s-gonna-be take no prisoners approach she used in “The Blind Side.”

”Our Brand is Crisis” opens everywhere on October 30th. Featuring Sandra Bullock, Anthony Mackie, Billy Bob Thornton, Ann Dowd, Joaquim de Almeida, Scott McNairy, Zoe Kazan and Dominic Flores. Screenplay adapated by Peter Straughan. Directed by David Gordon Green. Rated “R”