Take the Blue Side, Take the Red Side

An effective promotional campaign makes you think about a movie long after you’ve seen its trailer for the umpteenth time. A successful promotional campaign makes you want to see it no matter what.

Swing Vote had the latter.

I’d seen ads for this Kevin Costner vehicle for months, and I’d been keenly aware of it in spite of Iron Man, WALL-E, and even Batman. I really wanted to see it, not because I thought it would be outstanding, but because I thought it’d be fun. It was. For once, the campaign didn’t promise more than it delivered.

Swing Vote is an election-themed family comedy that delves into the politics of a strained father-daughter relationship, and instead of the politics of government, the often-amusing politics of the people who want to be in government as well.

Costner plays Ernest “Bud” Johnson, an apathetic, beer-slinging, lovable loser from New Mexico, who’s barely doing just enough to get by. The “only good thing” in his life is his 12-year-old daughter Molly (newcomer Madeline Carroll), an overachiever who’s ambivalent between a life as a vet and a life as the chairman of the Fed.

Molly takes care of both herself and Bud, until one mischievous moment on Election Day, when she accidentally sets off a chain of events which culminates in the election coming down to one vote – her dad’s.

What follows is a somewhat clumsy and overwrought study of the travails of overnight fame. Bud’s newfound notoriety is a double-edge sword he’s too dense to comprehend. Thank goodness Molly’s there to put things into perspective. She knows better than he, but unfortunately, so do we.

Of course she’s going to help him see the error of his ways and understand that the two candidates (a pompous current Republican president played by Kelsey Grammer and a Democrat opponent played by Dennis Hopper) are pandering for his vote – she’s the adorably precocious girl in a Disney movie!

Swing Vote strives to be more than that, though, and that’s where some of its funniest moments come from…from the weasel-like ambition of the campaign runners played by Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane. But it’s too little of a good thing, and the result is enjoyable but uneven.

The heart of the movie is pumped by the energy of Costner’s Everyman turn, and the smile and smarts of Carroll, natch. And for that, this one’s everything its promotional campaign said it would be: fun.

Plus, Paula Patton is in it. If she keeps lighting up the big screen this way I shall start thinking of her as more than Robin Thicke’s lovely wife. I shall start thinking of her as America’s next sweetheart.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures.