Swing Vote

This election cycle has had its share of movies dedicated to political themes - last week we reviewed the HBO special "Recount," in a month the Oliver Stone film "W" is coming out and last month a movie titled "Swing Vote" was released.

Swing Vote stars Kevin Costner and is a comedy which takes the Florida recount debacle and condenses it all into a fictional one man, one vote decides the entire election scenario. The first half of the movie was extremely entertaining and reminded me of the first movie that I had seen Costner star in, Bull Durham. Although Kevin Costner has been in a number of serious films I've always thought he was a better comedic actor. That comes through clearly as he vies with comedic talents like Kelsey Grammer and Nathan Lane. The movie does best as it presents a rough satire not only of the political system but also of the lost generation of non-voters or independents who seem clueless as to what's happening around them (and I say that having perhaps been in that position more than once myself).

I asked my 11 year old son what he thought the key theme in the movie was and how effectively they handled it. On the third try he got it right - the theme which was lighthearted at first and then pretty darn heavy-handed was "in today's politics people will sell their soul and do anything to win (i.e. the Karl Rove playbook)."

Once the movie took this too seriously of course it became less of a comedy and more of a morality play with serious character transformations occurring all across the board. I think it might have been more interesting if we would have let Costner continue his nearly Forrest Gump like character all the way through. Anyway, it is worth seeing in this political season as it does touch upon a real life theme that seems to be playing out on both campaigns. The other thing I'd mention is that if there was a Swing Vote scenario in this election, it would be more likely to occur here in Ohio.





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