Blu Ray Disks: Swing Vote [Blu-ray]

Swing Vote [Blu-ray] Review

November, 2004, New Mexico. Bud is a slacker with one good thing in his life, his engaging fifth-grade daughter Molly. On election day, Bud is supposed to meet her at the polling place. When he doesn't show, she sneaks a ballot and is about to vote when the power goes off. It turns out that New Mexico's electoral votes will decide the contest, and there it's tied with one vote needing recasting, Bud's. The world's media and both presidential candidates, including the current President, descend on Bud in anticipation of his re-vote in two weeks. Kevin Costner is adorable as the slacker father of a overachieving, 12-year-old daughter. Costner's antics made it laugh out loud funny at times. Overall a good movie.

Swing Vote [Blu-ray] Feature

Kevin Costner stars in SWING VOTE, a clever, feel-good "landslide comedy winner. So funny and inspiring, you'll stand up and cheer!" (Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com). Bud Johnson's an ordinary dad drifting through life, caring about nothing except his overachieving daugther Molly. Trying to encourage him to get involved, Molly accidentally sets off a chain of events on Election Day th

Swing Vote [Blu-ray] Overview

Kevin Costner stars in the hilarious timely comedy Swing Vote as Bud Johnson, an Average Joe, who is coasting through life with the help of Molly, his wise-beyond-her-years daughter. In a remarkable turn-of-events, the result of the presidential election comes down to his vote. Costner is joined by a brilliant all-star cast including Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer, Nathan Lane, Stanley Tucci and George Lopez who will stop at nothing to win over the vote of the man who holds the fate of the free word.

Swing Vote [Blu-ray] Specifications

The ghost of Frank Capra is summoned up in Swing Vote, a populist comedy about the U.S. presidential election--because of an electoral deadlock--coming down to one man, one vote. Alarmingly (for the future of the world), that one man is Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner), a beer-swilling, newly-unemployed divorced dad in Texico, New Mexico. Bud's got a week to re-cast his flawed ballot, so the entire election process--including the two candidates, played by Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper--descends on Texico for an orgy of campaign flapdoodle. Costner tries hard (probably too hard) to be the irresponsible good ol' boy, the kind of role he used to be able to handle with ease; by contrast, the composed Madeline Carroll, as his Little Miss Sunshiny daughter, comes off as a model of naturalism. Except for some pointed commercials, in which the candidates sell out their values to appeal to Bud's whimsical opinions on issues such as abortion and gay marriage, the movie's political bite is remarkably toothless. Both Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane are in the groove as cutthroat campaign managers, and the movie is jolted out of its beery idle with a late one-scene performance by Mare Winningham. There's an interesting film trying to climb out of Swing Vote, but it needs Frank Capra to kick it into shape. --Robert Horton

Stills from Swing Vote (Click for larger image)