It's tough not to root for them to succeed. That's a testament to Boynton's skill with the narrative.
Our Brand Is Crisis (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:38
Fresh:35
Rotten:3
Average Rating:7.3/10
Theatrical Release:Mar 1, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Rachel Boynton's excellent, probing documentary goes behind-the-scenes to show the manipulation and orchestration that is involved in big-time political campaigning. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS follows... Rachel Boynton's excellent, probing documentary goes behind-the-scenes to show the manipulation and orchestration that is involved in big-time political campaigning. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS follows members of the consulting firm of Greenberg Carville Shrum to Bolivia, where they have been hired to help controversial candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada reclaim the presidency. With only a few weeks left before the election, consultants Jeremy Rosner, Stan Greenberg, and James Carville work their magic, softening Goni's liberal image and shaping his message to appeal to the masses. In his typically audacious fashion, Carville delivers some of the film's most unforgettable quips. Meanwhile, the unemployment situation is threatening to spark a full-fledged national riot, raising the stakes even higher. Boynton's film is edited at a brisk, taut pace, adding drama to the already tense proceedings. An insightful after-the-fact interview with Rosner provides even greater context for the horrific situation that unfolded a year later and which, in fact, opens the film with a bang. Enlightening, engaging, and thought provoking, OUR BRAND IS CRISIS is a vital, profound work of nonfiction cinema. [More]
Starring: Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
Starring: Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
Director: Rachel Boynton
Director: Rachel Boynton
Producer: Rachel Boynton
Studio: Koch Lorber Films
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Release:
Sep 5, 2006
Reviews for Our Brand Is Crisis
Our Brand Is Crisis' queasy power comes from its understanding of how elections have tangible real-world consequences that are measured in deaths and riots as wells as polls and ballots.
It's a galling and provocative experience to viewers of any political persuasion, and a reminder to the left of how easily idealism can run amok.
Politics and mass communication are the volatile subjects of Rachel Boynton's information-packed documentary.
An amazing insight into the corporate swill that politics has become, even on the supposed ‘liberal’ side of the game.
What's eye-opening, as well as depressing, is that the film reveals how even the politics of a nation's life and death can now be reduced to a technocratic shell game.
Our Brand Is Crisis is not just for political junkies and should be widely seen and discussed.
If the fascinating, if disconcerting Our Brand Is Crisis teaches us one thing, it's that consultants, handlers, lawyers, and middlemen can always find a job.
What the film ably shows is how a band of Washington consultants can contribute to bloodshed and near societal collapse in a Third World nation whose politics can't be reduced to the same Beltway template now being exported around the world.
Ultimately provides a vivid illustration of the not-so-hopeful future of international politics.
Rachel Boynton’s painfully timely film is actually a full-court tragedy -- the sorry tale of a battle won and a war lost.
Boynton's main concerns are the exportation of American image advisers to other countries, and the notion that this faith in marketing is inherent in America's democratic ideology.
Boynton asks: That's the democracy we want to export? For well-paid political consultants like Carville, it's a rhetorical question.
Unlikely as it sounds, a documentary that details with jaw-dropping candor how contemporary political campaigning works at the highest levels of government is set not in this country but in the far-off reaches of Bolivia.
Boynton takes up deep inside politics Madison Avenue style as green stamps fail to establish a lasting government in Bolivia.
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