Movie preview: Swing Vote

So I was bored today. Having finished a bunch of work on my latest project for a client I looked around cable to see what is on the television. And of course I ran across the teaser for the film Swing Vote. Be still my heart.

Yes, Hollywood is investing even more money, celebrity entertainers and time to highlight what they think is important for average Joe American to vote for. It doesn’t hurt if average Joe is a highly liberal political favorite.

Here is the video in question (which I saw when I went to see WANTED and immediately threw from my memory).



Let me see if I can guess what the film will display.

Basically this plays on the fears some have of a close election, and amplifies it to the Nth degree by making it all come down to one vote in a swing state. It would be more likely to see Sanjaya embraced by Simon Cowell as the next Elvis.

Our everyday guy is apparently a single parent (the mom must have died for him to have custody) who is undereducated, lives in a trailer, get paid minimum wage when he works (bet he is am ex-factory worker or skilled labor that was replace by a machine or a company move overseas), loves beer, and is completely apathetic to voting. In fact he has never voted once in his life, because he thinks his vote does not count.

Thankfully, and amazingly, Bud (Kevin Costner’s character – can we get more stereotypical redneck?) has a brilliant daughter who loves school and politics. She is so smart that it’s safe to say she is the brains of the family. And she believes in voting, so she registers her nay-do-well father. Come Election Day she scolds her day into voting. Of course modern technology (built overseas no doubt) is built to be fixed and so his vote does not count nor is it recorded in any way, other than he made a vote.

Now the election is eerily similar to 2000 and 2004 in that the candidates are both miserable choices. Neither is able to pull a decisive lead because the popular vote is equal for both. And in another shock, the Electoral College vote – which really decides who is President is tied. Thus this one vote, of Bud – the only person to encounter this technology glitch in the entire country – will give one candidate the reigns of the nation.

Now we have an all-star celebrity cast (of which I do not recall a single Republican) that portrays the most silly of potential candidates. We have Dennis Hopper as the Democrat. He is the popular simple spoken guy. He’s trusted, from the mid-west, probably pro-ethanol, pro-global warming, and I’d bet he’s a granddad. They might even mention how he wants to raise taxes to help with a nationalized healthcare plan which is important because his wife died of a medical issue before he became a politician.

And we have Kelsey Grammer as the Republican incumbent. His is pro-big business, moderately intelligent, and guided by his unscrupulous political aide (Stanley Tucci as a de facto Karl Rove). Note the fun scene where the daughter remarks that the aide would sell his mother – who he mentions was a very bad (read abusive) mother.

Both men are willing to subvert their ideals and pander in the most degrading ways to suck up to Bud. Bud of course is taking full advantage of all this attention, which the media learns about in no time. He uses this to get recognition he feels he always deserved, i.e. a band he always wanted to be in. Until his near-genius daughter reminds him of his moral obligation to pay attention to all the letters he is getting about why he should vote one way or the other.

Suddenly he realizes that every illegal alien needs his vote to get more government services and higher pay. And every union worker that wants more money needs him. And every other pro-liberal view in the nation. I wonder where the movie is going??

So he decides to have the 2 candidates hold a special debate. Just the 2 of them and him. This is perfect as the Democratic candidate had just had his ass handed to him by his political confidant (i.e. Senator Hillary Clinton) because he has flip-flopped at the whim of the Bud. So in the debate I bet he comes clean and espouses the virtues of all the downtrodden liberal forgotten people in America (ignoring anyone with even a slightly conservative issue). And guess who Bud votes for.

Besides the blatant and consistent bludgeoning of liberal is good, there is another thing this film makes very clear. African Americans don’t exist, Hispanics are virtually all illegal aliens, and Asians are only in China.

Seriously, look at the video. Where are there African Americans? There is just one included to make sure I can’t say there are none. Even in the backgrounds of the scenes there is a void. Though Blacks do fare better than Asians. There are none I bet.

And other than George Lopez, again just to say that it’s not completely lopsided, what odds would you give me that there is not another Hispanic that is not from Mexico and illegal in the movie??

So Hollywood really is saying that White Americans should vote, and vote liberal. Because that is the best option of the bunch. And if you aren’t White, who cares. Any other race is not as smart or important as 1 single White male, barely sober, barely with an income, and far less intelligent than a child over 25 years his junior. Makes me happy Hollywood does not run the Government, though many of them wish they did – and a few think they are legislating via the movies they make.

Is this film worth seeing? No. You can get a better motivation to vote from watching School House Rock (Yes, I’m a Bill!). Does it make a deep political statement? If you are catatonic or just woke up from a 35 year coma yes. Does it help Democrats, or help promote the media driven presumption that Republicans are evil? Well more the second part of that than the first.

If you like your politics spoon-fed to you, without a glimmer of fact or unbiased presentation, run to a theater near you. Actually crawl, because there will be no lack of seating for this film. It will fail in a way only self-important Hollywood executives with a political agenda can not imagine.

But if you must, if the cable got shut off, if your grass is dead, if lifting a bowling ball causes seizures, and if you sign your name with an X go see this movie. Then tell me if I missed the mark. Because I won’t see this movie even if I were paid (exorbitantly), strapped to a chair, and promised a bevy of wanton women afterwards.