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by Sandra Olmsted

Truth and Our Brand Is Crisis both raise questions about political power and our process political. Writer/director James Vanderbilt’s Truth recounts the events of “MemoGate” which took down Dan Rather (Robert Redford) and Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) and changed investigative reporting, according to the film. Director David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis sheds light on how campaign strategists spin their candidates for the ultimate goal of settling their own personal grudges. While Truth has Oscar-worthy performances and extremely high production values, Our Brand Is Crisis doesn’t live up to its potential, but still has a perspective that will hopefully make voters think twice about what they are hearing about and from candidates.

Based on Mapes’ book about her search for details of George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, Truth is Mapes side of the story. While primarily a revealing inside look at TV news production, Truth also claims that the events of MemoGate lead to a shift away from true investigative journalism to newsertainment. By 2004, questions about Bush’s service during the Vietnam War began to surface especially after the military service of presidential candidate Al Gore became issues in the election. Mapes had begun chasing the story of Bush’s military service in 2000, but had been waylaid by the loss of her mother.

Then an informant, the ill and aged Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett (Stacy Keach), and new clues to Bush’s possible sketchy service and preferential treatment in Texas’ National Guard surface, and Mapes goes for the story and assembles a crack team to chase the clues. Her team includes former Marine straight arrow Lt. Colonel Roger Charles (Dennis Quaid), Lucy Scott (Elisabeth Moss), an academic, and Mike Smith (Topher Grace), a young, wild card researcher. While Andrew Heyward (Bruce Greenwood), the new head of CBS News, offers some leadership, Mapes works hard to provide solid news which will meet Dan Rather’s standards. Rather, a father-figure to Mapes, trusts and supports her. A joy to watch, the stellar cast bring the real-life people to life.             The focus of the MemoGate was whether some memos which lead Mapes to other evidence were faked or not, but the discussion of whether the said memos were fake distracts from the real evidence regarding Bush’s service. Meanwhile, the shift-boating of Al Gore provides a background comparison for how the politicians and pundits played faster and looser with the truth than Mapes or any journalist would. Vanderbilt’s powerful adaptation of Mapes’ book aims to make viewers yearn for true investigative journalism and, hopefully, question the value of news programs whose only purpose is higher ratings and revenue-generation fluff. Truth, a Sony Pictures Classics release, runs an efficient 121 minutes and is rated R for language and a brief nude photo. Truth is in theaters now.

While Our Brand Is Crisis doesn’t have as strong performances or high production values as Truth, the film does raise questions regarding how and why political strategists spin candidates and campaigns. Sandra Bullock stars as Jane Bodine, a former campaign strategist lured back into the business when approached regarding the 2002 Bolivian presidential race by campaign consultants Ben (Anthony Mackie) and Nell (Ann Dowd). Jane doesn’t believe Castillo (Joaquim de Almeida), the candidate she’s hired to help, can win the election because he’s too far behind in the polls amoung other reasons. Jane’s campaign super powers don’t kick in until she figures out that her old nemesis, Pat Candy (Billy Bob Thornton), also a political strategist, is working for the leading candidate.

Dirty tricks abound mostly because Jane and Pat have fought this battle more than once. It’s not about the candidate, the good of Bolivia, or an honest, fair election; it’s about settling personal grudges. Jane puts words in Castillo’s mouth and designs a campaign around a fabricated crisis. Since all the political strategists involved in the Bolivian election are Americans and all are heading from Bolivia’s election to other countries for the same purpose, this type of political marketing seems to be an American export. Eddie (Reynaldo Pacheco) who works for Castillo’s election, and his skeptical brothers, Pepe (Octavio Gómez Berríos) and Abraham (Luis Chávez), offer the perspectives of the Bolivian people regarding their country’s politics and problems.             Based on Rachel Boynton’s documentary of the same name, Our Brand Is Crisis provides an interesting insight into the machinations behind getting candidates elected no matter the country. The point of Green’s adequate direction and Peter Straughan’s uneven screenplay seems to be that believing anything a candidate says is pointless. Bullock foregoes the powerful tenue of her performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side, channeling instead the tongue-in-cheek attitude of Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality. Thornton reprises his role of Bill Clinton’s campaign manager James Carville in everything but name even though Carville was the subject of Boynton’s documentary. The Jane Bodine character, however, is invented and was originally written for George Clooney. Our Brand Is Crisis, a Warner Bros. release, is rated R for language including some sexual references and runs a fairly fast 107 minutes. Our Brand Is Crisis is also in theaters now.

Cynicism about the political process isn’t anything new, and these two films may add to the dissolution; however, both Truth and Our Brand Is Crisis bring additional prospectives although not comforting ones. ###

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