To me, this movie is perfection.

Excellent adaptation.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The story may feel a bit like cliché and some may even argue that this could be one of those "Drama of the week" TV movie. It certainly has a feel to it that would make for a great argument to this point. But it does have the acting talent at hand and it does have the urgency to tell a story that is very relatable. Especially to the frustrated voters in general all over the world.Will it help them get over the frustration? Apart from the fact that I don't want to spoil the movie for you, I'll just say that this is up for debate. As is the ending, which will have quite a few shake their head in disbelief. But it does make sense if you really think about it. It's not about what is being said, but what lies in between (pun intended).

MILD SPOILERSI had to see "Our Brand Is Crisis" because I've managed political campaigns before. It was as good and as bad as I thought it would be. Good, because it does indeed show how political campaigns are run, for the most part, but bad because it has a stupid, but predictable, ending, and a Left-leaning bias throughout - which I guessed correctly was coming, and simply chose to discount in my judgment of the film.Sandra Bullock starts off the film having abandoned the profession of political consulting because of a bad event we learn about later. Personal scumbag Billy Bob Thornton - who plays one in the film, too – is her capable adversary. Both are running presidential campaigns in Bolivia.Here's what rings true: the professional rivalries between consultants (who, nonetheless can be civil to one another) the scenes of actual campaigning, the strategies, families being divided by politics, the stress of campaigns, the fun people have during them anyway, the candidate who doesn't listen to his consultants, the backroom intrigue, and the dirty tricks.What's silly is the whining about money in politics (in the intro only, don't worry) and the fact that someone who's been in the business doesn't seem to know that people are mean or that politicians do, in fact, lie.Some of Bullock's lines are hilarious. How she pulls one over on the Thornton character before a big debate is brilliant. How she pulls back and listens in the beginning (though admittedly, she was ill) is exactly how one SHOULD start off a campaign before crafting and announcing a strategy. And the need to sometimes change strategies in mid-campaign is also well illustrated here.The scene where the two candidate's buses happen to be on the same road, leading to a hilarious "backside" joke, is just the kind of stunt campaigns pull on each other, and there are several "dirty tricks" shown as well that are MORE than plausible.Bullock's character, "Calamity Jane," shouldn't be as surprised and alienated by the process as is depicted here, given her long history in the profession. But in films about political consulting – like the excellent 1986 Richard Gere/Denzel Washington film "Power" which this resembles in many ways, which I highly recommend – sermonizing about how bad things can get and what's wrong with politics and managing campaigns is typical, and expected. But still, they manage to get a lot right, and it's nicely entertaining even if you aren't a political consultant, so I recommend it.

Political consultant Jane Bodine (Sandra Bullock) had a mental breakdown and lives in seclusion. Nell (Ann Dowd), Buckley (Scoot McNairy), and Ben (Anthony Mackie) hire her to consult on the failing campaign of Pedro Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida) as Bolivian President. He is a former leader who instigated harsh tactics and politics. She discovers old foe Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton) is running the leading candidate's campaign. She brings in LeBlanc (Zoe Kazan) to do opposition research.This movie wants to be a powerful statement against politics but is also trying to be a silly comedy. The fact that it's dealing with realistic world politics means that it needs to be more vicious. It needs to be darker. It needs to hit harder. The charismatic Bullock is stuck in no-woman's land. She is still compelling and fun although fun is not necessarily the needed adjective.

Review: I didn't really think much of this bland, political comedy, because I didn't warm to the characters and the subject matter wasn't that interesting. The "supposed to be" witty script wasn't funny at all and the performances were average. The storyline is pretty straight forward! Basically, Jane Bodice (Sandra Bullock) is hired to help a campaign team, to win an election for a Bolivian candidate. In the cutthroat world of politics, which I find quite boring, Jane has to battle against her arch-enemy, Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), who uses every trick in book to win the election. That's about it! I was hoping that something drastic was going to happen throughout the movie but nothing really did. The only funny scene was when Jane got stoned with some Bolivians but the rest of the film was uninteresting and there wasn't much depth to the characters. The chemistry between Thornton and Bullock was quite good but I honestly don't know what message the director was trying to get across. Everyone knows about the corruption in politics and that campaigners use underarms tactics to belittle the other candidates, so there wasn't   anything new in this movie, that people didn't already know. Anyway, I don't think that this is the movie to put Bullock back on the map and I'm not surprised that it made such a lose at the box office. Disappointing!Round-Up: After starring in big movies like Gravity and the Blind Side, I'm surprised that Sandra Bullock, 51 and still looking good, took on this role after reading the script, because it really wasn't that great. She's not one that stars in any and every movie, so when she makes a bad one, it really does stand out. She does have a habit of coming back with great movies, when he career starts to take a downhill slump, so I'm waiting for her next big budget project. This movie was directed by David Gordon Green, 41, who also brought you, the terrible Manglehorn with Al Pacino, Joe with Nicholas Cage, the funny, The Sitter, Your Highness and the popular Pineapple Express with Seth Rogen and James Franco. I did have high hopes for this film because the cast was half decent. Billy Bob Thornton is another one of those actors that don't make that many movies and with the success of the Avengers, Anthony Mackie has really made a name for himself but there performances wasn't that amazing and I didn't really get the ending. Budget: $28million Worldwide Gross: $8.6millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their drama/comedies starring Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Joaquim de Almeida, Ann Dowd, Scoot McNairy, Zoe Kazan and Dominic Flores. 3/10