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*SPECIAL EARLY REVIEW* 

At a point late in Director Joshua Michael Stern's "Swing Vote" Bill Maher (via a TV screen in a bar) says, "Jesus! Wake up America! Bud Johnson is a dumbass!"

That was pretty much the sentiment I shared by that part of the film.  "Swing" rides on the sheer good faith of its audience: if you can believe that a national Presidential election could reach the point of having the fate of the next leader of the free world rest on one individual's vote, welcome.  I believed it more for the reason that I was looking for an opportunity to confront some real relevant issues on our nation's current state.  Instead, a promising beginning of a narrative deflates into a forgetful coming of age story.  Well, sort of.

That promising start of the film takes place during an early scene inside of a truck, when single dad Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) and his bright daughter Molly (a talented Madeline Carroll) get to talking about the importance of voting.  Bud claims his single vote will not make a difference [insert your chuckle of irony here] and his tone while delivering these lines conveys a frighteningly realistic attitude felt among the general American public.  It's still baffling, when the numbers come in, to realize how many citizens just don't bother to vote.

It was at this stage that I began to sit up in my seat, hoping that the film would rise to become a bruising comedy that would either grab key sociological issues (like abortion) and cross-section the banalities of their governmental policies--or at least camp it up enough to the point of becoming a searing satire.

Unfortunately, Stern lets his characters run around the screen a lot, quipping here and there, sharing smiles and the occasional cold beer aboard Air Force One. 

The problem here is really Bud Johnson.

He's just a tired catalogue character.  Costner had better notes with his drunk character in the marvelous "The Upside of Anger."  We never really feel compelled enough to believe that Bud is the end all answer of greatness for the active Molly.  So when threats of Molly possibly being taken away from Bud come into the screenplay, we're yawning. 

But the screenplay has other problems.  There are one too many scenes that just don't work.  To name a few: (a) Bud secretly drinks beer at his egg factory job and begins to accidentally knock over stacks of cartons of eggs! Ha ha--right? (b) Andrew Boone's (Kelsey Grammer) pro-gay TV spot is just painful to watch; an 'open-door' policy so that homosexuals won't have to worry about opening the closet door themselves...oh, so clever (c) and Donald Greenleaf's (Dennis Hopper) pro-life TV spot is kind of horrifying.  As Greenleaf walks across a vibrant playground, kids start to POOOFFTTT! and disappear (think of the Nightcrawler special effect from "X2: X-Men United").

There are a few moments that work: Bud's chat with his factory co-workers about "in-sourcing" is amusing and it is just plain old swell to see Judge Reinhold working onscreen.  But for each of the few promising moments, there are about a dozen Bud moments full of his kiddy laughter and one-liners: "Like missiles-n-shit!"  There's also a lot of underage driving going on.  Yes driving.

Nathan Lane does what he can with his scenes and new beauty Paula Patton has this writer eager to see her in fleshier roles.  There's an unnecessary section of the film involving Molly's birth mother that doesn't add up to anything.  As the third act propelled forward I amused myself with the idea of a silly montage sequence showing Bud read each of the letters of mail before the big Presidential debate.  And then that montage happened.

More than anything else, the biggest mistake of "Swing Vote" is that it sells the viewer short of any closure.  We never see the Presidential candidates fully tackle any of the issues.  Hell, we never even see who Bud votes for. 

In the end, it's the theater audience that's going to be demanding a 'recount'--of their ticket dollars.