David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis (C-) is the story of a real-life political strategist (Sandra Bullock) who gets her groove back through her work as a consultant on a contentious Bolivian election. The screenplay has a few pearls of wisdom and the story a few moments of insight, but the film’s whole sense of time and place feels vaguely artificial. Green has a very unsure way of staging critical sequences and misuses Bullock’s charms. Unlike other films in this message movie genre (Argo and Thank You For Smoking, for instance), the weight of the situation is rarely conveyed, and there’s little gravitas to the opposition to provide counterbalance to the cynicism. Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina and Anthony Mackie are rather underutilized in potentially juicy supporting parts. It’s largely a misfire.

Related article: Learn PR tips inspired by Sandra Bullock’s character on the Cookerly PR blog.