As I write this in mid-April 2024, we seem destined to experience another tight presidential election in a few months. For a fictional look at the closest possible race, we move to 2008’s Swing Vote.

Apathetic middle-aged slacker Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) lacks direction in life and acts as a poor role model to his 12-year-old daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll). She essentially needs to care for her dad like she’s his mother, and she nags him to vote in the presidential election between incumbent Republican Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer) and Democratic challenger Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper).

Bud thinks voting is a waste of time. He wouldn’t even be registered if Molly didn’t do it for him, and he feels one vote makes no difference in the whole process.

Inevitably, Bud’s a no-show at the polling place, so an upset Molly decides to take matters into her own hands. She sneaks into the voting booth and starts to cast a ballot in Bud’s name, but the power goes out before she can complete the transaction.

This becomes important when the authorities tabulate all the votes and the race ends up as a tie. Because Bud’s vote didn’t count, he becomes the focus of the election.

He’ll get the chance to cast his ballot again, and that choice will decide the campaign. This puts Bud at the center of a media maelstrom as all involved vie for his vote.

Swing Vote falters in so many areas that it becomes tough to choose its biggest problem. Maybe all its flaws are equal and I shouldn’t attempt to differentiate, but if forced to pick, I’d cite its simplicity as its greatest concern.

In theory, the film offers a fun premise. However, after the controversial 2000 election, I think folks became too sophisticated to buy into the flick’s concept.

What are the chances that a presidential election could so simply come down to one vote and all the competitors blithely accept this notion? It wouldn’t happen.

Jillions of legal challenges would come into play, and the other votes would be counted and recounted until the cows came home, watched a Star Trek marathon and went back to the pasture.

In truth, the voting system is too irregular and flawed for one vote to ever be a certain deal-breaker. Swing Vote dumbs down the system to an absurd degree.

If the movie provided a compelling tale, then I’d be able to forgive its inherent idiocy. Unfortunately, the movie ends up as a serious mess. Much of the time, it provides a civics lesson disguised as a movie.

In addition, it tosses in many other disparate elements and never seems to know where it wants to go. Vote isn’t sure if it wants to be a broad farce, a heartfelt Capra-style drama, or a sly commentary on politics.

The film embraces all of these elements and succeeds in none. Vote changes pace at the drop of a hat and bops us over the head with its abrupt twists and turns.

For instance, out of the middle of nowhere, it suddenly involves us in drama with Molly’s long-distant mother. This adds up to nothing valuable and simply feels like it’s part of a different movie.

A lot of that happens. Vote jumps all over the map in such a way it proves dizzying to the viewer.

Don’t expect the acting to help. Costner plays Bud like a refugee from Hee Haw - until he suddenly becomes Jimmy Stewart at the end - while Carroll’s Molly is out of the precocious sitcom kid school of acting.

Grammer takes on the president as a cartoon dunce, while the simple concept of the eccentric Hopper as a viable presidential candidate seems far-fetched.

Add to that intrusive product placement, poor pacing and a mix of other flaws and Swing Vote turns into a dud. Perhaps the kernel of a good movie exists somewhere underneath its surface. That kernel never pops, and Vote leaves us bored and dissatisfied.

Swing Vote appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie presented a good but less than exceptional image.

Sharpness usually seemed fairly positive, if not better than that. While much of the movie showed appealing delineation, wider shots leaned a bit softer than expected, so this wasn’t a consistently concise picture.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, but light edge haloes crept in at times. No issues with print flaws materialized.

Colors leaned toward a lot of amber as well as some teal. The choices seemed trite but the disc reproduced them as desired.

Blacks felt pretty deep and tight, while low-light shots brought appealing clarity. While mote than watchable, the movie seemed a bit tentative and inconsistent.

With a general focus on characters comedy/drama, Swing Vote offered a decidedly lackluster DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. The soundfield emphasized general ambience and not much more.

Music showed pretty good stereo imaging, and a smattering of environmental elements like cars and whatnot cropped up in the side and back speakers. These remained quite low-key and didn’t add much to the presentation.

Audio quality was acceptable. Speech appeared natural and concise, as the lines sounded fine. Music could’ve boasted greater vivacity, but the score showed decent definition.

Effects came across as accurate, though they never exactly taxed my system. The audio worked okay for the material, but that was the most I could say for it.

How did the Blu-ray compare to the Blu-ray version? The BD’s lossless audio brought a bit more range, but the restricted nature of the track left little room for improvement.

Visuals demonstrated the usual format-related upgrades, which meant the BD appeared more concise and vivid. Even with the BD’s issues, it nonetheless worked better than the blah DVD>

We get the same extras as the DVD, and we open with an audio commentary from Writer/Director Joshua Michael Stern and writer Jason Richman. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story and character elements, editing and cut scenes, cast and performances, sets and locations, and other production elements.

I may not think much of their movie, but Stern and Richman provide a pretty good look at Swing Vote. They seem honest and involved as they dig into various aspects of the flick.

Along the way, they indulge in some of the usual happy talk. Nonetheless, the guys usually stay on task and turn this into a fairly useful little chat.

A featurette called Inside the Campaign: The Politics of Production runs 12 minutes, 58 seconds and includes remarks from Stern, Richman, producer Jim Wilson, executive producer Robin Jonas, and actors Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Lane, Paula Patton and Madeline Carroll.

“Politics” looks at the project’s roots, casting and performances, attempts at verisimilitude, and a few other production thoughts.

Expect a pretty standard promotional puff piece here. The featurette exists to interest us in the film, so it provides very little real information. We get a couple of minor shots of the set but nothing else that seems compelling.

Four Deleted and Extended Scenes fill a total of 10 minutes, 49 seconds. We find “Boone and Greenleaf’s Magic Moments” (4:08), “Fox and Crumb Change the System” (2:11), “Kate and Bud Fight” (1:31) and “Extended Bowling Scene” (2:59).

“Moments” focuses on insights experienced by the two presidential candidates. It would’ve been an inappropriate part of the final flick, as it takes us away from Bud for too long.

“System” goes down a similar path with a post-election look at the campaign managers. Once again, it goes away from the main story for too much time and wouldn’t work.

“Fight” keeps us on target plot-wise, but it adds nothing to the story; we learn nothing we don’t already know. “Bowling” falls into the same category, as it doesn’t tell us new information that fleshes out the movie.

We can watch these scenes with or without commentary from Stern. He tells us a bit about the segments and lets us know why the scenes didn’t make the final cut. As was the case with the main commentary, we get some good notes here.

Next we find a music video for “Hey Man What About You?” by Modern West. The band got the gig because their singer just happens to be one Kevin Costner.

This “video” actually appears to be an alternate scene from the movie. We see Bud’s band play a different song in the flick, and this one mostly works the same way, though the “video” also incorporates other movie clips. It’s a forgettable video for a bland country song.

The disc opens with ads for Earth, Blu-ray Disc, Miramax Films and Season Four of Lost. These also appear in the Sneak Peeks area along with promos for Grey’s Anatomy Season 4 and ABC News. No trailer for Swing Vote appears here.

After all these decades, filmmakers still try to out-Capra Capra, and Swing Vote falls into that category. Like most of the other imitators, Vote fails in its attempt to follow in Capra’s footsteps – and it can’t even muster a coherent story or logical tale. The Blu-ray provides generally good picture and audio along with a decent set of extras highlighted by a fine audio commentary. A disjointed mess, Swing Vote fails in almost every way as a movie.

To rate this film, visit the DVD review of SWING VOTE