Swing Vote

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.