Swing Vote

Movie Information

The Story: When a technical glitch causes a vote to go uncounted, the supposed voter is given the chance to vote again -- with his single vote determining the outcome of a presidential election. The Lowdown: A fairly preposterous scenario that might have worked as satire, but instead falls into a tub of mush and flails about for something like an eternity.
Score:

Genre: Comedy-Drama
Director: Joshua Michael Stern (Neverwas)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Madeline Carroll, Paula Patton, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer, Nathan Lane
Rated: PG-13

Like a landed fish, the well-intentioned Swing Vote not only arrives with a resounding splat, but also flops around on the dock for so long that you’re tempted to put it out of its misery, or throw it back. Joshua Michael Stern’s film is so determined to leave no viewer of any political persuasion offended that it ends up being offensive in its utter vacuity. The toothlessness of this purported political satire is such that it would have a hard time chewing its way through a bowl of Cream of Wheat. Apart from hard-line Kevin Costner fans and ninth-grade teachers in search of unthreatening material for a civics class, it’s hard to imagine the audience for Swing Vote.

The film might be of some passing interest to the estates of director-writer Garson Kanin and writers John Twist and Gordon Malherbe Hillman, since they made a movie back in 1939 called The Great Man Votes. It was about an alcoholic single father (John Barrymore) with a doting daughter (Virginia Weidler) who takes care of him. When it turns out that an election hinges on Barrymore’s vote, both parties descend on him in an attempt to secure that vote. Swing Vote gives us Kevin Costner as an alcoholic single father with a doting daughter (newcomer Madeline Carroll) who takes care of him. When it turns out that his vote will be the deciding one in a presidential race, both candidates descend on him in an attempt to secure that vote. Sounds awfully similar, doesn’t it? The big differences amount to the size of the elections and the reasons the single votes become decisive—and the nearly 50 extra minutes of padded running time in Swing Vote.

Ironically, The Great Man Votes—from nearly 70 years ago—has a lot more edge than Swing Vote. Where the old film is straightforward in its depiction of politicians as less than honorable, Swing Vote hedges every bet by saddling both the Republican incumbent (Kelsey Grammer) with a wholly venal and unscrupulous campaign manager (Stanley Tucci) and the Democratic challenger (Dennis Hopper) with an equally perfidious political adviser (Nathan Lane). The candidates are both swell guys and honorable men, but they have evil managers, you see. Where the old film ended with a political jab, this one ends with a massive serving of half-baked, indigestible, phony Frank Capra bromides. Swing Vote‘s plot may be “borrowed” from The Great Man Votes, but its soul is the property of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)—dumbed down to be sure everyone “gets it” and nobody gets hurt.

None of this is to say that Swing Vote is entirely without merit. Even if I don’t buy Costner as a simple-minded specimen of Boobus Americanus, there’s no denying that the man can hold the screen, while Madeline Carroll is almost too effective as his often heartbroken, wise-beyond-her-years daughter. She has that cry-on-cue shtick down to the same kind of science that makes so many child stars just a little unnerving—and the script makes it that much worse by laying on her troubles with a trowel. By the time Swing Vote goes spectacularly off the tracks with a completely arbitrary negligent-mother side trip, you figure all that’s left for her to do is the Anna Karenina bit with a train.

The film boasts a few funny bits. The efforts of each party to shift platforms in order to snare Costner’s deciding vote have their moments. The pro-gay Republican TV ad is at least mildly offensive in its use of stereotypes, but the antiabortion ad put on by the Democrats almost makes the film worth watching by itself. Here, the film gets close to actual satire by playing on the idea that politics consists of little more than telling people what the candidates think the people want to hear. But the movie quickly heads for the cop-out and that lemon of an answer it has been headed for since reel one (you don’t really think there will be much in the way of a resolution here, do you?). Rated PG-13 for language.

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About Ken Hanke
Head film critic for Mountain Xpress from December 2000 until his death in June 2016. Author of books "Ken Russell's Films," "Charlie Chan at the Movies," "A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series," "Tim Burton: An Unauthorized Biography of the Filmmaker."

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6 thoughts on “Swing Vote

  1. Sean Williams

    Apart from hard-line Kevin Costner fans and ninth-grade teachers in search of unthreatening material for a civics class, it’s hard to imagine the audience for Swing Vote.
    Looks to me like the audience consists primarily of sophomoric teenagers who’ve inherited their simplistic worldviews wholesale from their parents. But they probably expect a more viciously partisan agenda and will go home disappointed.

    Serves the little twerps right.

    There seems to be a paradigm in cinema that a political film should either be (1) monomaniacally partisan beyond the point of reason or (2) studiously inoffensive. The former temperament results from the American ideal that strong convictions equal integrity; the latter results from the American ideal that we should protect everyone’s personal esteem from the ravages of self-awareness.

    The candidates are both swell guys and honorable men, but they have evil managers, you see.
    Ah, in Mother Russia, we call this the Legend of the Good Tsar: the man on the throne is just; it’s his tax collectors who give the peasants trouble, and he doesn’t have time to review every aspect of his operation in person.

    dumbed down to be sure everyone “gets it” and nobody gets hurt
    …Which entirely defeats the purpose of political satire.

    She has that cry-on-cue shtick down to the same kind of science that makes so many child stars just a little unnerving
    That skill will serve her well in three years when she’s arresting for reckless driving while under the influence of methamphetamines. (Remember, you heard it here first!)

  2. Ken Hanke

    Looks to me like the audience consists primarily of sophomoric teenagers who’ve inherited their simplistic worldviews wholesale from their parents.

    From the box office, it looks like the audience consists of not much of anybody.

  3. Sean Williams

    From the box office, it looks like the audience consists of not much of anybody.
    Just like a real election!

  4. Ken Hanke

    So this guy is claiming he came up with a premise that for all intents and purposes originated about 70 years ago…

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