Our Brand
is Crisis
(2015)
(SPOILERS) Grant
Heslov and George Clooney seem to have a knack for picking up fact-based fare on
the grounds that it sounds vaguely interesting in a vaguely (or not so vaguely)
political sense, and then attempting to work out a way of bashing it into some
kind of semi-relatable narrative shape as a fiction movie. Occasionally they
strike lucky (Argo, Good Night, and Good Luck), but more
frequently they seem closer to having little idea, what with this and The Monuments Men and The Men Who Stare at Goats. Actually, I
liked the latter, but it wore on its sleeve how no one had a clue how to make
it work.
Our Brand is Crisis sounds like it should be good, based as it is on
the 2005 doc of the same name concerning campaign strategists’ contributions to
the 2002 Bolivian presidential election. But, like the majority of Clooney’s socially
conscious fare it ends up mostly toothless (hardly surprising, when he happily hosts
fundraisers for an overtly corrupt presidential nominee, presumably on the
tremendously rocky grounds – always assuming he isn’t hopelessly deluded and
genuinely thinks Hillary’s great, that is – that she’s better than the
alternative). This is the movie equivalent of reformed ham, vaguely reminding
you of the real thing but process-packaged to the hilt. The movie comes
equipped with a jaunty, knowing, can-do vibe as it skims the surface of the
ramifications and machinations of political power processes; it’s so determined
to be accessible (rather than really good) that it ends up utterly
inconsequential.
I’m not
sure who’s to blame. Screenwriter Peter Straughan has been on a roll of late
with Frank, Wolf Hall and Tinker Tailor,
but let’s not forget he also has his name on The Debt, How to Lose Friends
& Alienate People and the Goat
Starers. Alternatively, I might single out director David Gordon Green, who
like Richard Linklater tends to hit a bum note when he strays from the indie
field.
The
performers are fine, if unremarkable (Sandy Buttocks and Billy Bob Thornton and
Scoot McNairy doing what we’ve seen them do many times, likewise Joaquim de
Almeida appearing dodgy and duplicitous as per usual). The main problem is that
the material, despite being ripe for exploration, is treated in the most
obvious manner possible. The attempts by Bullock and Billy Bob to undermine
each other’s candidates’ campaigns are banal, the genuine historical precedents
ones we’ve heard many times before, leading to ones lacking any inventiveness (“I never knew Klaus Barbie”). Added to
which, Bullock’s character arc is tediously familiar (burnt out, back in the
game, firing on all cylinders to a generically upbeat soundtrack against campaign
montages, shown to have more insight than everyone else, regular sparring chats
with her Billy Bob nemesis).
In a way this
is worse than straightforward mindless
studio fare, because it’s made with exactly the same formulaic, hit-making
mind-set but actually derives from worthwhile subject matter. As the opening
voiceover informs us, campaign contributions (the ones Clooney, despite
concurring with this assessment, is supporting) are indicative of an
empirically corrupt system, but the self-satisfied manner in which Our Brand is Crisis sits on its
satirical laurels and discusses electioneering through cartoonishly manufactured
crises is dishearteningly antiseptic rather than stirring (inevitably the
insidious IMF deal goes ahead, although curiously there isn’t a whiff of the
CIA in all this). Worse still that our protagonist campaigner is lent nominal
scruples; it’s a cop out to the realities of such forums, but of a piece with
Clooney’s MOR handwringing in the likes of this, Money Monster and The Ides of
March. A shame, as this might have been another Bulworth.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.