Bullock appeared with her Our Brand Is Crisis co-stars, Anthony Mackie and Thornton, on Thursday’s episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and they too spilled a few secrets.
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Oh no she can’t.
The big story around Our Brand Is Crisis is Sandra Bullock taking the role from George Clooney and thank the Hollywood gods that she did. Any victory by either of the consultants will be hollow and tragically ironic, and so we’re relieved when the final credits roll. She’s fun to watch.
When we first meet Jane, she’s retired from the down-and-dirty world of politics, having been felled by a scandal involving the violation of election laws. She garnered the nickname “Calamity Jane” for good reason and is reticent in getting back to work when approached by an American management outfit trying to get their man Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) elected in Bolivia.
2016 will bring Tilda Swinton playing another originally male character, in Marvel’s “Doctor unusual”, as well as the all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig and a “Road House” remake starring Ronda Rousey in Patrick Swayze’s role.
We know very well, of course, exactly where this movie is going just because it stars Bullock. She recalled, “You’d be like, ‘Take it off, hang it out there!’ And then you realize we’re on a soundstage and there’s a whole bank of crew on the other side, and just my butt hanging …”
“There is only one wrong”, she maintains as stoutly as she can – “losing”. For Jane, it’s a blood feud played out upon a national landscape that won’t have any effect on her real life. Convince voters they’re in crisis, and tell them how you’re gonna save them.
As a quick overview of real life, in 2002 socialist candidate Morales was winning the hearts and minds of the Bolivian electorate, much to the chagrin of establishment shoe-in de Lozada, who brought in American political consulting firm GCS to help bolster his numbers.
If the movie has a failing, it’s in the blurred line between documentary and fiction.
There is a suggestion of Carville/Mary Matalin across the political barricades in the use of Billy Bob Thornton as the political devil in this snake pit whose last name is Candy.
However, fans of the terrific documentary – itself a spiritual sequel to the still-powerful Clinton 1992 doc “The War Room” – would do well to completely ignore the source material in order to enjoy the limited charms of this fictionalized version. All you need to know about the movie’s engagement in the condition of Bolivia and its people is that at a moment in which the people are filling the streets and raising their fists, its Jane’s self-satisfied face and voice we see and hear, ’cause that’s really who matters in this situation.
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Even worse, are those going around saying this movie ought to have been funnier. Everyone else is a sell-out, including the personable media expert Buckley (Scott McNairy) and whip-smart, negative-campaign expert LeBlanc (Zoe Kazan), or else a naive bumpkin, like Bolivian newbie Eddie (Reynaldo Pacheco), who is hopelessly idealistic. That’s why the formerly formidable campaign strategist is lured out of early retirement to help an unpopular Bolivian president in an upcoming election-by convincing the reluctant public, through whatever means necessary, that they should vote for him.
