Review: Swing Vote

Kevin Costner plays an apathetic blue-collar drunk from Texico, barely held together by his bright young daughter (Madeleine Carroll), whom he is struggling to maintain custody of. Carroll, although only 12, believes in doing your civic duty, and when sloshed ‘ol daddy fails to show up to vote, she decides to do it for him. She needed him to do it for her school project anyway. Unfortunately, something screwy happens with the voting card, there’s subsequently a tie between the two major candidates (and it’s crucial for the overall vote of the country, contri…er…conveniently), and it results in them coming to Texico, New Mexico to try and woo just one voter to their side as he re-votes. A guy who doesn’t give a crap, doesn’t think about much, and never wanted to vote in the first damn place. Now not only does he have the two politicians targeting him, but a huge swarm of media are camped outside his house, too. Kelsey Grammer plays the avuncular but smug incumbent Republican U.S. President, whilst Dennis Hopper is the somewhat wishy-washy, baby-kissing Democrat candidate, but both seem willing to take on any and all positions for that crucial vote. Costner, meanwhile, just wants this all to go away, especially as his co-workers and townsfolk start to resent all of the attention. Paula Patton plays a TV news journo in town who is very nice but clearly ambitious, Judge Reinhold is Costner’s redneck co-worker, Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci play the chief advisors to Grammer and Hopper, respectively. Willie Nelson, and several news figures play themselves, whilst George Lopez is Patton’s demanding boss. Mare Winningham is effectively pathetic in a helluva cameo as Carroll’s mum and Costner’s ex, who is in even rougher shape than Costner.

 

Director Joshua Michael Stern (later the writer-director of “jOBS”) and his co-writer Jason Richman (“Bad Company”, “Bangkok Dangerous”) take an interesting but unlikely situation and fail to do anything remotely interesting with it in this 2008 film. The film plays it so blandly safe with its politics that you can’t tell the difference between the Democrat candidate and the Republican candidate, and there’s no Libertarian candidate showing that this was the filmmakers’ intention. No, they are not trying to suggest that Republicans and Democrat pollies are the same, they just wanted to take advantage of the notorious ‘Recall’ vote (and they’re a bit late on that anyway), and haven’t got the balls to really do it in an intelligent and interesting manner (Though one can clearly see that the filmmakers slant slightly towards the Conservative side. Grammer’s Republican president is more silly than amoral, Hopper’s Democrat candidate is never afforded such dimension, and his first moment has him striking a very Nixon-like pose). And it’s done in such a clumsy manner, too, suggesting that maybe they were simply in a rush to get this one out. Hopper’s character is set up as a phony sell-out from the very first scene he has that when we hear that he used to stand for something we ask…When? Not at any point in this movie, that’s for sure, we’ve already seen him reading from cue-cards well before this point. At one point late in the film, Costner (who apparently changed from Republican to Democrat himself in recent decades) says that he thinks a helluva lot of both candidates. The audience is likely to ask why, because neither truly stands for a damn thing and both are willing to stand for everything. At best they learn the err of their ways, but we only see this with Grammer. Hopper’s character isn’t afforded the same chance, barely getting any scenes with Costner at all. It’s been completely botched, though Grammer (a Republican in real-life, though probably not a social Conservative) is certainly well-cast as the stuffy President.

 

The character played by the absolutely edible Paula Patton could’ve made for solid romantic fodder, but the filmmakers don’t seem to hem and haw their way with her character for so long that there doesn’t end up being any time for the romance to actually happen, so it just hangs there untouched. So why have the character at all? To show that the media are intrusive sell-outs? Nope, they soften her character so much that the point never really eventuates, at least not through her. So…nope, I’ve got nothing on that one. It just seems a shame, because the film clearly sets up the idea that Costner is barely holding custody of his daughter, and there’s this lovely woman right there who already gets along with the girl…but the film never goes there. Honestly, the screenplay is pretty damn lousy.

 

The best and funniest thing in the whole film is a truly brilliant ad for Grammer’s character, who suddenly decides to go pro-gay marriage in a manner that won’t alienate Republicans. You simply have to see it for yourself, it’s genius. I also liked the scene between Grammer, Costner, and ‘The Football’. Yes, that ‘football’. Otherwise, “Primary Colours” this ain’t. It’s not even “Wag the Dog”. Helluva big cast, but a lot are wasted, especially a miscast Judge Reinhold (as a redneck with a terrible handlebar moustache who nonetheless apparently votes Democrat??), and Stanley Tucci, who proves he can’t save every film on his own. Seriously, had Randy Quaid fled to Canada by this point? ‘Coz he would’ve been spot-on in the Reinhold part, and I’m not entirely convinced Tucci and Nathan Lane shouldn’t have swapped parts. Young Madeleine Carroll is sadly not a very good actress, in a pretty important part.

 

It’s a flimsy story that seems to also be missing another dimension, a romantic subplot perhaps. Or better yet, make the political stuff a subplot to a romantic comedy (though “The American President” made a nice balance with both). Instead it never really sets about being strongly about anything, kinda like its politicians. And yet it runs for just shy of two hours, which is almost criminal. On the positive side, Kevin Costner hasn’t been this perfectly cast in years (much as I liked him in “The Guardian” and “Mr. Brooks” too) playing the drunken mess barely held together by his smart young daughter. His character’s non-committal, disinterested douchiness (yet obvious paternal decency underneath) holds the film together at least part of the way. There are people out there like him in every country on Earth (thus a film about such a character isn’t a bad idea per se), which is why I don’t believe voting should be compulsory in Australia.

 

Unless you’re an American or it’s been your life-long dream to see Judge Reinhold with a handlebar moustache and mullet, I’d skip this. It’s wholly underwhelming, poorly scripted fluff, wasting a glowingly beautiful Paula Patton and an unlikely (Capra-esque is being too kind) but interesting idea of two opposing political parties courting one specific, disengaged person’s vote. It just doesn’t hang together.

 

Rating: C