Colibel
Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
BlazeLime
Strong and Moving!
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
in1984
9 of 10. This documentary has gotten better and more insightful and relevant without changing a thing.I had forgotten about it until the recently released 2015 film by the same name. That film is more of an action/suspense/comedy version that should be enjoyable by everyone regardless of whether they're into the hidden secrets of politics.Besides capturing the actual crisis and disaster that happened in Bolivia with the aid of what amount to marketing and advertising gurus for hire recklessly selling a candidate without regard to who the candidate is or what they are capable of.The elephant in the room, alluded to but never addressed specifically, is that Bolivia is one of those countries targeted by the "war on drugs". The campaigners didn't think to ask why their group was bought and brought in for this particular candidate as opposed to one of the others.Today's brand: Yes Your Country Can be Taken Over by Focus Groups.
Tracy Allard
This is one of the least compelling documentaries I've ever watched. I was going to just pop onto IMDb and vote 2 and leave. But when I saw the number of positive reviews, I felt I must have missed something, so I watched it again. But was revealed nothing new from the first viewing.The first purpose of a documentary is to inform, to reveal information not yet known to the public, or to present old information in a new light. There is also propaganda that passes for documentary... this is closer to propaganda than to documentary. We herein learn absolutely nothing about the socio-political context of Bolivia, the presidential elections are presented outside of any factual reality context. The documentarist seems to view the election process within a vacuum.I suppose there are youth who watch this movie, who are inexperienced enough to not realise that electoral victories are purchased with money and statistical analysis of critical demographics, but the rest of the adult world already knows this. If this documentary was meant for those youth, it would have had to spend a little less time watching boring speeches, and more time giving a bit of context and history.As for the adults watching this, there is simply no content, nothing that we all haven't already experienced in North America. In fact, the documentarist, more than any other sentiment, seems to side with the consultants, asking non weak questions, observing them doing what the candidate pays them for, without questioning their presence, their cost, their previous achievements, and the expenses/actions of the other candidates. No history of Goni is presented, he looks like an idiot, behaves like an idiot, and the documentarist does not question any of this.What's the point of this documentary, it has no world context, no Bolivian context, no N.American context. Frankly it looks almost more like a sales pitch for those poor "good guy" consultants than anything else. Hire us, we'll get you elected... This is neocon propaganda disguised as "unbiased" docudrama. Blah
wildkatzaz
Essentially this film shows the US liberal war machine honing its skills in the impoverished nation of Bolivia - and offers a chilling preamble to our own presidential campaigns and elections.James Carville and clan use a media defamation campaign, focus groups, and a corrupt and willing news media to play Bolivia for cash, ensuring the election of an arrogant man clearly out of touch with his people.The opening shot gives you an idea of the results.Not for the faint of heart - but a must-see nevertheless. It offers a candid, unfiltered look at politics at its worst and leaves you wondering: Can it happen here? Has it?
smax21
I think it's a universally known fact that many Americans actually don't know a lot about other nations and cultures. For me, I thought the focus was more about how clueless the Americans were trying to run this campaign for a country they knew little about and seemed to simply do what they could to get Goni in office then fail to help follow through with the promises they made. I blame the Americans for Goni achieving the presidency and then his demise for never coming through. I do believe without the Americans Goni would not have won and therefore the issued that followed would not have happened.I felt the film showed the power the people hold in Bolivia and how significant their opinions are as well as their ability to be heard.I suppose each person will see this film in their own way, but if you don't know a lot about Bolivia or the recent politics, this is a good film to watch to learn about the recent presidential topics.