Swing Vote
In a truly unbelievable tie with the presidential election Bud Johnson becomes the one voter who will decide the presidency.
Film making 16/25
Cinematography 16/25
Audio 18/25
Bonus Features 10/25
Total 60/100
While the premise behind Swing Vote is beyond belief we do get to see our democracy in action starring Kevin Costner as swing voter Bud Johnson. Bud Johnson is a loser with a young daughter who is drinking his way through life and who just lost his job at the local chicken processing plant.
Bud is a single father who is actually cruising through his life as his daughter Molly, played by Madeline Carroll, grows up on her own. When Bud spends late nights out drinking Molly ends up taking him home, waking him up in the morning to get herself to school and generally taking care of Bud.
When Molly tries to have Bud vote in the presidential election as part of his civic duty and her classes study of the voting process he ends up missing it due to being drunk after being fired from his job. Molly takes matters into her own hands and tries to vote for him but the machine she is using is accidentally unplugged and she tears her ticket out and runs away.
When the machine is turned back on and his vote is miscounted the machine reports he is eligible to revote for the presidency. The rest of the nation has already voted and the end result is a tie with Buds vote the last uncounted vote in the country, quite farfetched but believable for the sake of a comedy.
When the rest of the nation finds out about the swing vote and who is responsible for choosing the next president thanks to a dedicated small town reporter Bud is national news. Both candidates flock to the small town of Texico, New Mexico to try and persuade Bud their way.
While the candidates are bribing their way into Bud’s heart his daughter Molly is taking the situation seriously, so much so that she is answering all the mail that Bud is receiving. She asks her father to have the candidates to participate in a debate and Bud agrees after he is ridiculed on television by a talk show host and in a neighborhood café by his friends.
Bud has his eyes really opened when the current President played by Kelsey Grammer tells him about an offer for a job that his campaign manager tries to have him offer. Bud understands the situation when the other candidate played by Dennis Hopper tells him about the same situation and how he also does not like how the situation has been playing out.
When the media misinterprets Buds opinions on national topics and both candidates continue to change their positions they both give Bud a bad time publicly. Bud finally changes his mind and takes the debate seriously when he sees his daughter has been answering his mail from strangers about how serious he is taking the entire situation.
After Molly runs away from home and finds her mother who is in a worse situation than Bud and they argue some about letting Molly see her Bud takes her home. Bud dives into his study of the political arguments for and against both candidates with help from the secret service agents assigned to guard Bud and Molly. That small town reporter helps Bud and Molly as well when she changed her mind about Buds situation and kept the secret of Bud not actually voting.
Finally at the debate the next day Bud reveals how he has embarrassed not only his country but also his daughter with how little he has cared in the past for voting and politics. He starts the debate by reading letters from others and their questions about current topics they want settled by the new president.
The last scene we see Bud entering the voting booth and casting his vote but they do not reveal who he voted for, guess we’ll have to wait for the sequel. Swing Vote is an impossible situation that has been covered by the Constitution but would really be a stretch to actually have happen.
The movie is both pretty good and sometimes kind of bad but overall it is a decent enough movie with some really good acting by many of the actors. Kevin Costner does a very believable job of the father who really does not care much about many of the topics that presidential candidates use as their platform.
They have added enough various but very believable parts of the movie like the reporter that at first only wants to break out big in news and finally changes her mind and keeps her story to herself. The daughter Molly also does a great job at her part of the daughter of a somewhat neglectful father who just wants to see her dad amount to something.
Swing Vote may not be the great movie but it does have some very good messages and plenty of humor with all the political wrangling of trying to change the mind of the one voter. The Blu-ray edition of Swing Vote has the usual audio commentary playing during the movie as well as a few other additions.
You have a deleted and extended scenes feature, a making of feature with the behind the scene footage, a performance by Kevin Costner and his band not shown in the film and some sneak peeks of TV shows and movies. There really is not much here but a few good laughs at the making of and the other features for at least some bonus content.
There really is not much in the way of extras when all is said and done but there is the great audio and video of the Blu-ray edition of a pretty good movie that pokes fun at our political system. Swing Vote is worth watching at least once and with all the various well done acting is a decent movie for some repeat viewing.