ROUNDUP REVIEW: OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

(2-1/2 stars)

Politics and mass communication are the volatile subjects of Rachel Boynton's information-packed documentary "Our Brand is Crisis," having its Chicago premiere. Like 1993's "The War Room," the film shows how modern media and high-powered political advisors affect elections, how they can influence, shape or even bollix them up. The movie records, with unusual intimacy, a 2002 presidential battle in Bolivia, seen from the camp of one-time president Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada, an unpopular hopeful who is trailing by double digits before he brings in the U.S. experts.

As in "The War Room," one of the players here is Clinton mastermind James Carville, but here he's more of a guest star than a central figure. Carville's consulting firm (Greenberg Carville Shrum) is hired to manage Goni's election, and its ace adviser, Jeremy Rosner, heads up the strategy that wipes out much of that early deficit. There's a comic aspect to a lot of this; the candidate, a rough-hewn businessman, will never be known as "Slick Goni." And the vote isn't too satisfying, especially when Boynton shows us the election's aftermath. "Our Brand is Crisis" also proves, unhappily enough, how U.S.-style media politics is spreading around the world.

- M.W.

No MPAA rating (parents cautioned for complex political material). In English and Spanish, with English subtitles. Opens Friday at Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave.