Review of Swing Vote (2008) by Chads. — 31 Jul 2008

When Bud Johnson(Kevin Costner) draws the curtain in his voting booth, "Swing Vote" leaves you in limbo; you're left wondering as to which party ideology that this ordinary man will endorse with his cast ballot.

But this inconclusive scene is double-edged. Unless you're post-cynical, the matter at hand has more to do with the validness of Bud's right in determining the next leader of the free world.

"Swing Vote" hides its shrewdness behind Capraesque manipulation, but it's only a facade. "Swing Vote" implicates the public at-large, not just the candidates and their respective parties, as being culprits of our flawed, some say, broken, voting system.

Molly Johnson(Madeline Carroll) is not only Bud's daughter, she functions on an extra-diegetic level; the girl is like a campaign manager for the apathetic-minded American people. Bud may be the moderator during a presidential debate, but it's Molly's words, Molly's passion for the issues, that her father delivers into the cameras.

In a cameo, which reveals that this sentimental film has some teeth, Bill Maher proclaims that Americans are dumb-asses. By making her father look smart on national television, the young girl tries to prove the former-"Politically Incorrect" host wrong in creating the illusion that regular joes like her dad cares about policies and initiatives.

But since Molly is growing up in such morally ambiguous times, she doesn't understand that her good intentions(and the journalist's good intentions) are as corrupt as the people who orchestrated the Florida recount(and the journalists who helped enable the coup on Al Gore) in 2000, the year of the hanging chad.

Bud needs to step out of that voting booth and teach his daughter how to be ethical in an unethical world.