brendan-821-654855 I am an avid documentary watcher, and I had heard good things about this movie, so I went into it expecting something far greater than what was actually delivered.Ironically that made this movie much like the political campaign it explored - a lot of hype, but very little substance.There are some technical issues with this documentary (like the very obvious use of ADR questions), but ultimately it falls down because of the fact that it presents a premise that really doesn't have a lot of merit.Effectively this film tries to blame the US political marketing firm for the violence and unrest that followed after their candidate won the Bolivian election.I'm not from the US, and I'm no fan of political spin doctors, but at the end of the day, it's quite absurd to try and blame the campaign strategists for the leadership failings of the man who they were paid to see elected into office.At the end of the day this documentary completely fails to explore the fact that the other two candidates in this election almost certainly had their own campaign advisers proposing similar PR strategies to give them the edge on the campaign trail.In the end this documentary felt a little unbalanced, and a little bit pointless, in the sense that it didn't really offer much in the way of deep insight into the election in which this campaign unfolded.

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?

cadmandu This film is a documentary about how a group of American political consultants, led by James Carville, helped elect a president in Bolivia.It is a cliché that colonialism is a natural byproduct of the industrial revolution. The need for export to foreign markets seems to include our political machinations. What else are political consultants going to do in off years? This film is outstanding if only for the fact that the cameras rolled everywhere; we get to see some very private moments with both the consultants and their clients.What is most shocking about this film is how out of touch their candidate is, a fact which seems to phase the consultants not at all. Their advice to him is right on ("You have to act quickly after the election") but the obvious incompetence of their man does not really register with the Americans. Once he's elected, he raises taxes on the poor masses, who have already been protesting in the streets for months, and who then riot, burn buildings, and get massacred by the army. Duh! It's a real Marie Antoinette moment.The only thing I felt was lacking from the film itself is some information on the second candidate (Manfred Reyes) though technically the filmmakers were not responsible for reporting on the other candidats. The third candidate was an obvious sleazeball (advocates the coca trade as a solution to Bolivia's problems) but the middle man was a mystery. Was he really a fascist? Where did his money come from? How sincere was he about anything? We don't really know. I wouldn't trust any of these creeps to watch my 50 cents while I left the room. So if you want a good dose of how disastrous and pathetic Americans are when it comes to foreign countries, this film is a gold mine. In the age of Iraq it's kinda tame, but the principles are the same. It made a big impact on me. I walked around for a few days wondering what it would actually take to turn around a country as messed as Bolivia. I was also annoyed by how dependent Bolivians seem to be, looking to the government as their only solution. It's a different world out there, amigo.