Movie Review - Swing Vote

From the trailer, Swing Vote looked to be a somewhat mildly entertaining movie and I was expecting a few laughs with a mediocre storyline. I'm not much of a fan of Kevin Costner because typically the movies he stars in are not storylines I am interested in.

However, Swing Vote was excellent! Except for a few slow scenes here and there, everything else about this movie was terrific!

Basic plot: Presidential election time, before Bud's vote can be placed in the computer, the power goes out which means his vote didn't count and he is now allowed to re-cast his vote in 10 days. Media gets word of this and since he seems indecisive, both presidential candidates try to sway him to get his support. Bud previously thought that one person didn't make a difference and didn't even plan on voting but his daughter, Molly, makes him promise he will (it is, afterall, his civic duty) and now his vote will literally decide who the next president will be.

While there are several laughs, this is mostly a heart-felt drama focusing on the relationship between a single dad and his tween going on 21 daughter and how he's the one that has some serious growing up to do.

All of the characters are genuine and you will find yourself caught up in the moment, not sure who to root for, but always seeing Molly's point of view and feeling for her while she plays the role of caretaker to her dad yet still manages to excel in her schoolwork.

Madeline Carroll, who plays Molly, is destined to be the next Dakota Fanning or Abigail Breslin. She easily fit in with the pros and you never once questioned how she got the part. Definitely look forward to her next movie. She was able to make every emotion genuine and had an infectious smile, plus, she didn't appear to be a Hollywood kid trying to play a normal kid. She just seemed like a normal kid. A very believable brainiac kid, at that. I just can't say enough good things about her performance.

The ending was a bit predictable, but the whole moral of the story is to make sure and research both sides and really find out about the issues that the candidates are for or against and use that information to make your decision, because your one vote, no matter how insignificant you may think it is, DOES matter.

Highly recommended! Very powerful message and quite the inspiring movie. I think this will be a sleeper hit because it didn't get much advertising, but hopefully word of mouth will encourage everyone to go see it, anyway.

There is quite a bit of tame swearing, but otherwise, this is a great film for the whole family.

Go see it and then let me know what you thought of it.

Vixy :]