By Ian Bonham

Our Brand is Crisis (15)

Staring : Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie

Director : David Gordon Green

Writers : Peter Straughan (screenplay), Rachel Boynton (documentary)

Duration : 1 hour, 48 minutes

Opening at Kings Bastion Leisure Cinema TODAY Friday 22^nd January

Based on a true story, “Our Brand is Crisis” is the story of Sandra Bullock's Jane Bodine hired to help a Bolivian presidential candidate win a 2002 campaign. On the opposing side Jane's long time enemy Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton) is running things, and soon the battle between them turns nasty.

I sat down to watch this expecting a repeat of “The Interview”, a controversial comedy that rather upset North Korea on its release. Happily, I got something very different, and watching it starting out with such low expectations was quite rewarding. Sandra Bullock initially gets to show off her comedy acting chops, at times generating quite a few laughs from me, but as the political intrigue kicks in she slowly unveils a much darker aspect to her character in a quite convincing performance. She does really command the screen every time she is on it, and builds a very well rounded character from what could have been a very two dimensional role.

Although we start out with comedy, the movie does develop into something with much deeper themes. These are iced with some lovely comedic moments still, but the underlying messages are in there, just delivered very differently to the Oscar-baiting movies we have watched over the past few weeks.

Firstly, I found myself pondering on the state of US and UK politics and the role of 'Spin' and marketing in political campaigns. While it's a little more difficult to pull the wool over people’s eyes in a smaller community like Gibraltar, the huge marketing campaigns that occur in larger countries is really quite frightening. This film looks at that, and the dirty tricks that get employed in very Machiavellian methods.

Also, I found that the film was asking an interesting question about who actually is in charge. Is it the politicians, or are they just being moved like chess pieces in a much larger game? This is subtle to begin with, but gets laid on with a trowel later on in the movie.

It's a movie not so much about politician versus politician, but publicist versus publicist, with Bullock and Thornton really enjoying themselves here. All the other characters feel slightly peripheral to the story, apart from Eddie, played by Reynaldo Pacheco. His character is quite brilliant, and Reynaldo delivers a performance that takes us into the impact of these political games on real people.

Although this is a movie based on a true story, it is a much lighter watch that some of the films we have seen over the last few weeks, and I enjoyed myself. There is some good, heart-warming fun as we see the US and Bolivian cultures collide and then begin to learn from each other. There are deeper political thoughts, which do get you contemplating the state of the world today. It is however an entertaining watch and worth a couple of hours of your time.