O Candidato Honesto (translation: "The Honest Candidate") is a 2014 Brazilian comedy film, starred by Leandro Hassum as the title character João Ernesto Ribamar, a seemingly admirable candidate with a heroic career, having endured the loss of his parents, drought and poverty, working to provide for his ill grandmother from an early age, and leading a bus drivers' strike which conquered working rights, but on the inside, he's just as much of a Corrupt Politician as any others.On the run to become the next President of Brazil, things take a turn when his dying grandma makes one last request which becomes a Dying Curse: Wishing him to be honest. As a result, he becomes incapable of lying or doing anything dishonest, which becomes a huge problem as an impending debate is about to decide the second ballot, and he needs to solve his situation before he spills the beans about his involvement with corruption among other embarrassing things, and in the process, he starts reanalyzing his actions and legacy in politics.
The movie was a huge success, thanks in no small part to comedian Leandro Hassum as the protagonist, although some critics panned the humour as typical standard Globo Filmes comedy.
It had a sequel, O Candidato Honesto 2, realeased in 2018.
This movie provides examples of:
- Cannot Tell a Lie: What kickstarts the plot.
- Disappointed in You: João's grandmother is disgusted by her grandson descent into corruption, as she makes ti clear when he goes to visit her in her deathbed, but tries to ask him to be honest from now on. When he can't bring himself to comply, she grabs him by the ear and demands that he be honest before perishing.
- Dying Curse: Subverted. João believes his grandmother cursed him with her dying wish, but when he contacts her spirit, she admits to not having such a power, and deduces this is all his conscience tormenting him.
- Face–Heel Turn: João Ernesto was once a genuinely heroic union leader until he entered politics, and wound up absorbed by the corruption and becoming yet another corrupt politician.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: One of João Ernesto's meetings is being interviewed in a show hosted by one Maria Lúcia Britto and with a talking puppet bird (which João hates and winds up revealing during his interview) which clearly references the Brazilian Ana Maria Braga show.
