After the one-two bombs of YOUR HIGHNESS and THE SITTER, David Gordon Green retreated to Austin to make three lovely, low-key films: PRINCE AVALANCHE, JOE, and MANGLEHORN (the middle entry being my personal favorite). Now, he’s back in the mainstream directing game with the Sandra Bullock-starring, Clooney and Heslov-produced OUR BRAND IS CRISIS, and it looks…well, like something produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov.
That’s not a knock on the quality on display, or even the sheen that kept me from realizing it was a Green film until the title card; the film’s subject matter seems, even more so than ARGO or THE IDES OF MARCH, like a political-minded morality tale that uses humor and star power to perk up the super, super serial implications of the narrative. This trailer’s supposed to feel BIG and IMPORTANT like ARGO (note the use of Ten Years After’s “I’d Love To Change The World” in the back half, similar to how that film’s trailer used “Dream On”), and we’re supposed to feel galvanized by Bullock’s Jane Bodine’s crisis of conscience and her eventual coming-to-terms with what needs to be done re: this Bolivian election. But this story doesn’t have the sexiness of the ARGO story’s Hollywood-infused theatricality, and I’m yet to be convinced that this was truly meant for the big screen and not somewhere like HBO, which just housed the mature, political-minded WE NEED A HERO.
Still, the script was written by Peter Straughan (TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, FRANK, Heslov’s underrated THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS), Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton look like they’re having a good time, and the supporting cast includes Anthonie Mackie, Scoot McNairy, and Zoe Kazan. Plus, in how many big American studio films does Joaquim de Almeida (DESPERADO, FAST FIVE) get to be as gleefully goofy as his character comes off in this footage?
I just hope Gordon Green’s bringing the lessons he learned down in Austin about character, pacing, and tone to the studio gigs he takes from here on out.
OUR BRAND IS CRISIS and also a Hollywood movie on October 30th
