American political strategists are employed in Bolivia, to help orchestrate the campaigns of rival presidential candidates.  One of the strategists, Billy Bob Thornton, is a smooth-talking operator with no discernible scruples; the other, Sandra Bullock, has been pummeled by life but returns for one more battle with her arch nemesis, Thornton.

This is designed to be an uncomfortable experience, what with the loud, brash Americans barging into Bolivia with their focus groups and targeted messages, trying to win at all costs before they fly back to their comfortable lives in the States and leaving the Bolivians with the ugly aftermath.  Since the characters are amoral it’s hard to root for anyone, or to really care about anything that’s going on.

David Gordon Green’s film sidesteps what the American influence really means for the Bolivians; the characters don’t care, so why should the audience?  And yet that is the heart of the story, as shown by Bullock’s actions at the conclusion.  But because she has not seemed to care throughout, her actions at the end seem incongruous, if not naïve and more than a little foolish.  The film has moments of insight and the leads are very good at conveying professed American superiority.  But watching this cannot be a pleasant experience for anyone other than political junkies.

Quick confession: I had not realized until just before I wrote this that the film is a fictional remake of a documentary with the same title from 2005, when the political firm GCS (Greenburg, Carville, Shrum) was employed to aid former Bolivian president Gonzales Sanchez de Lozada (“Goni”) ascend to the presidency again in 2003.  I have not seen the documentary, which I imagine would be more insightful than this fictional version.  And I wonder now if my reaction is colored by the knowledge that this isn’t some wacky, made-up story; the basis is factual, and documented.  Nevertheless, I didn’t really care about the new version, Bullock and Billy Bob or not.  ☆ ☆.  7 November 2015.