Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired feature remake rights to Our Brand is Crisis for George Clooney's Smoke House to produce. As with all Smoke House projects, the movie is a potential starring and directing vehicle for Clooney. The original movie was a political documentary from Rachel Boynton about the Bolivian presidential election of 2002, when candidate Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada hired James Carville to employ focus groups, sloganeering, and smear tactics to help him win; he was ultimately accused of being too aligned with the U.S. and was forced to resign amid a political crisis. Peter Straughan (Mrs. Ratcliff's Revolution) will write the feature adaptation, which is expected to rework the documentary into a dark comedy. (Variety)

"President Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada, widely recognized as the architect of Bolivia’s neoliberal “shock therapy,” had orchestrated the gas deal, and on Oct. 11 he ordered the military into El Alto to quell the protests and break the blockades. By the end of October, more than 60 demonstrators were dead and 400 wounded—the result of soldiers firing “large-caliber weapons, including heavy machine guns,” into the crowd, as the Catholic Church testified in a public statement. León, stopped by troops along with four others, was unarmed when she was shot. Among the others killed were small children and a pregnant woman. In the wake of the massacres, Sánchez de Lozada fled the country for the United States, where he remains today.

On Feb. 1, the Bolivian Supreme Court issued an indictment for Sánchez de Lozada that paves the way for an extradition request to be sent to the United States (along with the extradition of two of his ministers, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín and Jorge Berindoague, who also fled to the United States in 2003). The request will likely arrive in the United States in May. For his role in the massacre, known in Bolivia as “Black October,” Sánchez de Lozada is wanted to stand trial for homicide, among other crimes, and faces a 30-year sentence if convicted.

Despite the uproar in Bolivia, U.S. officials appear ambivalent in the face of extradition efforts, which initially began in 2004. Bolivia’s ambassador to the United States, Gustavo Guzman, characterizes the response his government has received from the Bush administration as a “truly deafening silence.”

World Briefing | Americas: Bolivia: Ex-President Charged With Genocide

Prosecutors charged former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and his cabinet with genocide in the deaths of more than 60 people during the antigovernment protests that toppled him in 2003. After his ouster, Mr. Sánchez de Lozada fled to the United States, where he still lives. He has repeatedly denied that his forces used violence against the protesters.

It’s hard to know whether to marvel or weep when James Carville goes into his Bill Clinton–meets–Looney Tunes act in Rachel Boynton’s knockout documentary Our Brand Is Crisis—the context is so morally topsy-turvy. As a high-priced consultant to the 2002 Bolivian presidential candidate Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (“Goni”), Carville gives a dazzling demonstration of how a politician should field an “oddball crap question” and steer it, in as few words as possible, back to the campaign’s message, which in this case is, “We’re in a crisis—and I’m the guy with the know-how to fix it.” The problem is that the blinkered patrician Goni doesn’t have the know-how to fix a stopped toilet, much less a country on the verge of economic collapse, with a disenfranchised indigenous majority howling to be recognized.

The problem with the film? The director, Rachael Boynton, got amazing access by (admittedly) smiling and doing the cute girl thing, and making everyone like her and feel comfortable around her. But at a certain point you’re done shooting and you’ve got to sit down and evaluate what you’ve got and drop the cute, and treat your subject with the critical objectivity they deserve.

And what do these guys deserve? Well, you tell me. The first shot is of a riot in the streets of Bolivia where a body lies dead, oozing blood. Pretty much moments later, a guy named Tad (no shit) Devine is standing on a Bolivian street corner wearing a sweater vest, talking into a cell phone and saying stuff like “This is the frame — we can brand crisis.” Now, you don’t have to be an acid bitch like me to realize that at this point you are now dealing with a comedy, and your job for the next 90 minutes is to completely savage these guys.

I’m guessing that the director got too bonded with these clowns, because it’s the only excuse I can think of for letting them uncritically gas on while the camera runs without calling them on the amazing amount of bullshit they are churning. Carville has turned into little more than a parody of himself