Our Brand is Crisis (Blu-ray) (2015)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Featurette-Sandra Bullock: A Role Like No Other (11:00)
Rating
Year Of Production	2015
Running Time	107:31
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	David Gordon Green
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Sandra Bullock Billy Bob Thornton Anthony Mackie Joaquim De Almeida Scoot McNairy Ann Dowd Louis Arcella Zoe Kazan
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Dave Wingo

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 5.1 Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 Polish Dolby Digital 5.1 Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 Turkish Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Chinese Korean Arabic Croatian Czech Greek Hebrew Hungarian Polish Portuguese Romanian Thai Turkish	Smoking	Yes, constantly
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Political strategist Jane “Calamity Jane” Bodine (Sandra Bullock) has been out in the wilderness, physically and literally, for six years following a succession of scandals and failed political campaigns when she is approached by Ben (Anthony Mackie) and Nell (Ann Dowd) to come to Bolivia to help with the campaign for President of Pedro Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), a rich, conservative senator who is trailing the populist candidate Victor Rivera (Louis Arcella) badly in the polls. Castillo has an image problem and had also been president 15 years before when people protesting against his policies had been shot. Jane is not interested until she is told that Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), her nemesis who has bested her in every campaign they had fought, was advising Rivera.

     Jane travels to La Plaz where she joins the other US advisors including Buckley (Scoot McNairy). However Jane, suffering from altitude sickness and unable to warm to Castillo, finds it difficult to get involved until Candy pulls some underhanded tricks and Jane meets Eduardo (Reynaldo Pachero), an idealistic young man from the slums on Castillo’s team. From there things become very personal for Jane; she orchestrates and manipulates a rebadging of Castillo as a strong and experienced man capable of managing Bolivia’s “crisis” and enlists the dirt-digging researcher LeBlanc (Zoe Kazan). Thereafter the campaign becomes one of half-truths, lies, innuendo and dirty tricks. Game on! May the most amoral team win!

     Our Brand is Crisis, directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express (2008), is based on the 2005 documentary of the same name by Rachel Boynton which told the story of the involvement of US political advisors in the 2002 Bolivian presidential election. Our Brand is Crisis changes the originally male protagonist to the female character played by Sandra Bullock, who is very good and very watchable as “Calamity Jane” Bodine, and her interactions and byplay with Billy Bob Thornton are the film’s highlight, although there are a lot of funny lines as well as laugh out moments. When the film sticks to the electioneering and machinations, the unfolding and unravelling of dirty tricks, it is both sobering and amusing, although if anything it is rather too light-hearted for its own good so that Jane’s revelation at the end seems too sudden and does not have the impact it might have had in a slightly more hard-hearted political expose.

     Our Brand is Crisis tries to have it both ways, as both an expose of electioneering skulduggery and as the journey towards enlightenment of the central character. Nevertheless, Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton are always worth watching and the film holds the interest, is funny in places and the dirty tricks are intriguing.

Video

     Our Brand is Crisis is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, close to the original 1.85:1 ratio, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.

     Our Brand is Crisis was shot on film stock and looks lovely! Detail is pristine, the colours in both interiors and exteriors are deep, rich and lush, everything having a rich golden hue. Blacks are solid and shadow detail excellent, skin tones are natural, brightness and contrast consistent.

     Other than some slight blur with motion against mottled surfaces I did not notice any artefacts or marks.

     A range of European and Asian subtitles are available as well as English for the hearing impaired and Arabic.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

     Feature audio is English DTS-HD MA 5.1 while also available is an English descriptive audio and Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Thai and Turkish dubs, all Dolby Digital 5.1.

     The film features a lot of dialogue which is always centred and easy to understand. The surrounds and rears provided a nice enveloping presence with music, engines, crowd noises on the street or at a bar, while the stone throwing sequence was very effective. The sub-woofer did not call attention to itself but provided appropriate depth to the music, the stones and engines.

     The score by Dave Wingo had an Andean feel and was supported by South American and western songs, including ones by Tom Jones and Ten Years After.

     I saw no lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Audio Sync
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Sandra Bullock: A Role Like No Other (11:00)

     Using on-set and film footage plus comments from Sandra Bullock, the director, producer and six of the other cast, this featurette looks at the changes made to the film when Bullock was cast and the character changed from a male to a female, the character of Jane Bodine, her character arc during the film and her revelation at the end. Light-weight, but a reasonable watch.

     Blu-ray releases of Our Brand is Crisis are the same in all regions except for audio and subtitle options.

     The change to a central female character both helped and hindered Our Brand is Crisis. Sandra Bullock is both funny and very watchable but there seems a need to soften the underhanded Machiavellian machinations of her character and have her “repent” of her ways at the end. The result is that Our Brand is Crisis throughout is not as hard-edged or cynical of the electioneering process as it might have been. Nevertheless, in an election year here, a look at the advisors, strategists and the spin involved in political campaigns is never less than interesting.

     The video is very good, the audio fine; extras are minor but are the same as are available elsewhere.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall