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Swing Vote

Movie Grade: C-

Overall Grade: C-

Making a seasonal movie makes perfect sense to me. The season will come around once a year and the respected movie will have its little spike in annual popularity; something along the lines of A Christmas Story. What I don't get is movies like Swing Vote that surround themselves with an event that only comes around every four years. If this was an awesome movie that was about the presidential election I wouldn't have any gripe with it, but that's not really the case.

In an amazing turn of events, the electoral votes are completely even throughout America. The final decision has to come from a malfunction in the voting booth, leaving the last vote to someone from Texico, New Mexico. In this unbelievably fake sounding (but real) city, Earnest “Bud” Johnson (Kevin Costner) has become the voice of a nation. Bud, along with his Lisa Simpsons-esque daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll) become the target of the candidates, Donald “Don” Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper) and Andrew “Andy” Boone (Kelsey Grammer), who try to way his opinion.

If I had to sum up the movie in one word it would probably be obvious. Almost every twist and turn was very predictable up until the end. Bud is a drunk who forgets to vote but his overly intellectual daughter sneaks in and tries to vote for him, opening up this can of worms. When Bud is discovered the candidates sacrifice their values to get him on their side. You know, kind of like what they do anyway, just more personalized. There is a lot more to list but I don't want to ruin it, I have faith that you'll figure it out.

Being obvious never destroyed a film though. If everything was innovative, well then it wouldn't be; that my friends, is a paradox. Anyway, there are a couple of redeeming factors. We get some laughs here and there with Bud being the apathetic everyman that he is. Also the film is surprisingly very aesthetically pleasing with some really beautiful shots.

One side note that I'd like to add is the star studded cast. Let me clear up that it isn't stars you love as much as stars who's names you can't remember when you see them in random mediocre films now and again. We get the three I listed earlier, along with Nathan Lane, George Lopez, and a few other really odd choices. I really think we could have had a better presidential candidate then Dennis Hopper though. The man isn't a bad actor but whenever I see him I think of him as Lefty, the badass cop who hunts down Leatherface and his family in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, or Howard Payne, the disgruntled ex-cop from Speed. Then my imagination runs away and I pretend they're

The special features on the DVD were average, suiting the movie perfectly. Inside the Campaign: Politic of Production aka Behind the Scenes was run of the mill. It gave a few interesting quips on the choices in setting, casting, and all that jazz. Toss in a few cast and crew interviews and there's your behind the scenes.

I was pretty surprised with the deleted scenes. For the first time I thought they were for the most part, as good as the film itself. The movie does run a solid two hours so I guess they were removed or shortened for time constraints, but I only thought the extended bowling scene was completely useless. Everything else could have found its way in the movie. There is also a Modern West music video for their song, "Hey Man, What About You?" I'm going to be honest, I hit menu pretty soon after it started. Its country so it didn't fall into my music preferences.

Movie Grade: C-

Overall Grade: C-