Swing Vote is a film dedicated to the people in this world that refuse to think for themselves. These people would rather play multiple choice with all of their decisions rather than think through a problem and offer up an original idea of their own. Designed around the idea that one man could potentially be the deciding vote in the Presidential election, Swing Vote obviously realizes its premise is far-fetched, which means there is an ulterior motive for making this film. Too bad it is impossible to figure out just what exactly they were going for.
In Swing Vote Kevin Costner plays one of the stupidest people to ever live. His name is Bud Johnson and I don’t know if it is insulting or not, but I believe he is supposed to represent the average American voter. That didn’t insult me as much as it saddened me as the general audience attending my screening was obviously connecting with him as I writhed in my seat at every word he said. However, if you can’t connect with Bud, perhaps you can connect with his 12-year-old daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll), a little girl that is probably smarter than 99% of Americans. I know she is smarter than me.
With the election coming up Molly needs to do a report on her father voting for President, but being the dead beat that he is, he ends up getting fired from his job and decides to drink his sorrows away. Frustrated with the situation Molly decides to vote for him, but just as she enters her vote the plug gets pulled on the machine and it errors out. Her vote didn’t count and Bud is now called upon to revote and decide the election as it all comes down to the one county in Texico, New Mexico. That, of course, happens after the scene in which Molly goes to the bar and drives her drunk father back home to their trailer park.
Despite all my negativity, this film could have worked, it just needed to decide what it wanted to be. Did it want to be a commentary on politics in America? Did it want to be a commentary on the role the media plays in politics? Did it want to be a father-daughter story? I can’t answer those questions, because as it desperately tries to be all three it fails at each and every turn.
Writer/director Joshua Michael Stern has been writing direct-to-DVD and made-for-TV movies to this point, outside of the limited release Neverwas, which was film festival failure before debuting on DVD about a year ago despite its impressive cast. I would love to say the problems with this film are simply his script as I am interested in seeing Stern’s adaptation of King Lear due out in 2010, but his direction is equally annoying as he revisits the same problems over and over again as if redundancy was a directorial success item. Just how many times do we need to see Molly wake Bud up from his hang over? How many times do we need to see him disappoint her? If the smart people in the audience are meant to connect with the intelligent 12-year-old wouldn’t it be logical to believe that we are going to be as frustrated, annoyed and fed-up with the film’s lead character as she is? As a result Molly cries, I just got more and more pissed off.
Perhaps the most enjoyment I got out of the entire film was from the over the top political ads run by the two candidates (Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper) as they were forced to flip-flop depending on whatever Bud said in the media. One featuring a stampede of immigrants and another featuring kids exploding into puffs of smoke for an anti-abortion campaign. I also enjoyed the irony of a one-time and highly publicized drug addict playing a Presidential nominee, I am sure Hopper himself had enough fun with that on his own.
Swing Vote quite simply made me mad. I was consistently annoyed as cliché battled stupidity and redundancy battled inane. To find enjoyment in this film would mean to turn off all your sensibilities and considering the ridiculous nature of the premise and the idea that it is about something more than its silly storyline is cause enough for all the vitriol due this flawed production.
D
