Name : John Semley / Alias : Globe and Mail
Say what you will about the sneering, misanthropic political dramas of previous eras (Blow Out, JFK and so on). But at least they came by their cynicism in good faith.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
"Crisis" squanders its intriguing premise.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
For a movie about political messaging, Our Brand Is Crisis doesn't know what it's selling besides Sandra Bullock's lusciously buttery dye job.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
The movie wafts and drones and shifts gears so many times that it is never as funny, pointed, jaundiced or clever as it could have been, and much less politically significant than it should be.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Despite Sandra Bullock's best efforts, she can't make "Our Brand Is Crisis" much more than what it is: A predictable political comedy that hits all the expected beats and goes sappy exactly when you think it will.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
The overriding message, which certainly isn't new, is that power corrupts and politics is a nasty game not meant for the little people. But in "Crisis," the point is not powerfully made.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Our Brand is Crisis hits a lot of clunky notes and the end is unforgivably cornball, but it's still one of the liveliest political black comedies I've seen in a while.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
The film indulges in the unabashed goofiness that stoked Green's "Pineapple Express," and which Sandra Bullock demonstrated to raucous effect in "The Heat."

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Like the ruthless political strategists the film both satirizes and celebrates, Our Brand Is Crisis speaks out of both sides of its mouth.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In Bullock, "Crisis" has a star who makes the whole thing seem better than it probably is.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
David Gordon Green's latest unpredictable addition to his resume is offbeat and appealing on some levels but is neither as funny nor as trenchant as it might have been.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Like the politicians and political consultants it mocks, "Our Brand Is Crisis" doesn't completely deliver on what it promises.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : L.A. Weekly
A horror film wrapped in a fast-talking political comedy.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
A slick political dramedy with bursts of personal humor but an overdose of Hollywood gloss .

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Much of what the film considers fodder for satire is too familiar to feel revelatory or shocking, while characters that start out believable behave in unrecognizably ludicrous ways simply because the script forces them to.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
stumbles over a vast terrain of self-serving scoundrels (Trump trumps anything they can make up), but livewire Bullock never lets hypocrisy out of her comic kill zone.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
An excellent supporting cast includes Anthony Mackie and the terrific Ann Dowd as fellow consultants. Yet it all rests on Bullock. She's fun to watch.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
"Our Brand Is Crisis" is in that annoying category of movie that sends audiences away thinking, "It's almost good, but something is off."

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
It's a case study, if nothing else, of starting with a dubious idea and making it downright awful.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
If it's satire, it's neither sharp nor especially funny. Yet it doesn't deliver emotionally, either.

Name : Bruce Kirkland / Alias : Toronto Sun
[Bullock] has the knack of playing someone who is seriously flawed, yet still appealing for her smarts, her broken heart and her sharp wit.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
Green . has little feel for the movie's comic turns, and his way with the drama is held back by his obvious and conventional sympathies.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
The most important aspects of this striking story have been scrubbed away or laundered into Hollywood-style pseudo-psychological neutrality.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The movie is funny enough to get its share of laughs but, in its angry heart, it's a tragedy - and the saddest part is that too much of this story is true.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Offers some nice behind-the-scenes glimpses of how political sausage is made just as America's political sausage is sizzling on the fire.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The movie unfortunately gets stuck between edgy drama and broad comedy, and most of the humor lands with a thud, unless animals getting run over or an A-list actress mooning bus passengers get your vote.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Here, Green disappears deeper than he ever has before into workmanlike competence; the only personal signature is a funky, slow-mo dance party, which the filmmaker somehow manages to insert into every movie he makes.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
Green and company put an artificial ceiling on the pic's satirical potential. Had they fictionalized the country, "Crisis" could have joined the ranks of "Duck Soup" or "The Mouse That Roared."

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
Ultimately, "Our Brand Is Crisis" isn't as hard-hitting, trenchant or angry as it should be.

Name : Scott Tobias / Alias : NPR
The film becomes a Sandra Bullock vehicle, and while it's buoyed by her typical comic aplomb, it loses sight of the bigger picture.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
[Bullock's] role as a weary Machiavelli in sunglasses and trench coat gives her little to work with but a stream of jaded one-liners.

Name : Alex Pappademas / Alias : Grantland
It's the first time I've watched a David Gordon Green movie and found myself wishing I was in the capable hands of a set-'em-up-knock-'em-down director like Jay Roach.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
You want to know how the Janes of the world happen. Is it money? Power? Ideology? You never find out.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Can Sandra Bullock in top form overcome longtime American audience resistance to comedies about politics and maybe even get another nomination in the process?