The inherent cynicism that detracts from the entertainment value of director David Gordon Green's "Our Brand is Crisis" recalls the stark admonition blurted out by Jack Nicholson's no-nonsense Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in "A Few Good Men" (1992). The gyrene points to the moral contradictions that oft define our species, assuring that we "can't handle the truth." This fictionalization inspired by Rachel Boynton's documentary about political strategy in the 2002 Bolivian presidential election may be a little too true.

Advertised as a comedy-drama and starring Sandra Bullock as a storied political consultant, the initial expectation is something shrewd and sarcastic, but tempered with the fluffy, droll edges that the perennial gal next door is known to supply. However, if the film's ingredients were listed in the way regulated by the FDA for foodstuffs, comedy would be noted last, right after sullen and dark realities.

There are basically two ways to handle politics in film. You can resignedly laugh about it by satirizing the heck out of it as was so beautifully done in Preston Sturges' "The Great McGinty" (1940) and Hal Ashby's "Being There" (1979). Or, as seen in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), you can venture a bit of idealism about the democratic process and just hope that someday humanity will evolve to a higher form. Gosh knows the current practices of our elected officials remain as primitive as the bloodletting that probably killed President Washington.

"Our Brand is Crisis" takes the second path, planting the seed that perhaps some great epiphany realized by Bullock's Jane Bodine will slingshot us into an advanced realm of egalitarianism. Never mind that Jane, a seasoned, battle-scarred veteran of numerous campaigns won and lost might not even believe it herself. We have our fingers crossed that she's never really given up hope. Plus, it can't help but raise her currency with us that her adversary in this election, Billy Bob Thornton's Pat Candy, is irredeemably repulsive.

But of course it will be an uphill fight. For starters, her man, ex-president Castillo, convincingly played by Joaquim de Almeida, brings all sorts of baggage to the scenario. Conversely, reform candidate Rivera (Louis Arcella) has captured the imagination of the predominantly impoverished masses. He's way ahead in the polls and perhaps deservedly so.

Equivocation and skepticism permeate the atmosphere, causing us at more than one juncture to conclude that they're all just a bunch of parasitic bums who really don't care about the people they say they represent. And that goes twice for the strategists who bamboozle us into thinking that their candidates will somehow carve out a better life for folks. Still, somebody has to win, and it might as well be our Jane. But hark, there are rumors hinting of a skeleton deep in her closet, about a mayoral campaign and a girl who committed suicide. Ooh.

Tossed into this pit of slithering snakes is Reynaldo Pacheco's Eddie, a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed political novitiate who, unlike the hardened Jane Bodine to whom he pledges his fealty, really believes. Enamored of the underdog ever since a baby-kissing tour earlier in the former president's sketchy career, his romanticism sends up a cautionary flag. Careful, Eddie.

Representing his exact antithesis and long invulnerable to any rude awakenings or revelations, Thornton as Jane's arch enemy is the Mephistopheles of politics, a despicable scourge who basks in the skullduggery of his chosen occupation. Forever provoking Jane with sinister soliloquies about his self-proclaimed superiority, he always tosses in a sexual innuendo just to assure his loathsomeness.

As it stands, a drab script that thrives on a list of mediocre dirty tricks the tacticians smirkingly play on each other, mixed with political theories that even pre-date the scheming employed in Caesar's reign, fails to capture the imagination, let alone teach us something we didn't know.

But, if you've been complaining of late that there just aren't enough movies depicting the life, times and landscape of our Bolivian neighbors to the south, rejoice ... in a minor sort of way. Studio footage is supplemented by location shots in and around La Paz that, while regaling us with some beautiful scenery, also sadly corroborate the country's 53 percent poverty level.

To political junkies who just can't seem to get enough theorizing, stumping and hornswoggling, I beseech you take the advice of those New York City cops who, in dissuading passersby from rubbernecking at some mishap, instruct, "Keep moving, nothing to see here, keep moving." Surely the effort it would take to sit through "Our Brand is Crisis" would be better put toward the positive political statement you'd make by showing up at the voting booth come next election.

"Our Brand is Crisis," rated R, is a Warner Bros. release directed by David Gordon Green and stars Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton and Joaquim de Almeida. Running time: 107 minutes

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