Starring Kevin Costner, Madeline Caroll, Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer
Directed by Joshua Stern
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures

By Clarence Yu

KEVIN Costner’s latest drama-comedy starrer, Swing Vote, is a timely film for a primer on the US electoral process. Released in North America in August this year, the movie focuses on a trailer-living, divorced, single father, all-around loser and drunk bum (Bud Johnson) played by Costner.

As it happens, during the US election that transpires in the movie between the two presidential candidates, played by Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer respectively as the Democrat challenger and the incumbent Republican President, the whole fate of the race boils down to the vote of one man, Johnson, due to a voting machine performance error that did not able to record his vote.

The rest of the film focuses on the intricacies and dynamics of US politics. Both candidates try to pander to Johnson, and in a comedic turn of events, both candidates end up reversing their positions on traditional Republican and Democrat policies. Republicans suddenly become pro-choice on abortion, and Democrats, pro-life

It’s quite an entertaining movie, but Costner’s stardom, having faded exponentially since 1996’s Waterworld, perhaps contributed to the film’s lackluster success at the US box office.

It’s also disappointing that the film was not shown here (at least not yet) in theatres.

With the upcoming US election, the film would serve as a good educational vehicle for us Filipinos on the machinations and intricacies of the US democratic process. Corruption and media spin probably cannot be eradicated in any democratic country nowadays during an election, but at least the film shows that it can be a limited evil, and perhaps a lot of us could enlighten ourselves to this fact, what with all the front page news hounding us these days.

The movie refreshed my hopes that our attainment of this kind of democracy is still eventual and possible.

Costner plays a delightful turn here as a rascal-like bum, having been usually typecast as the stoic leading man in such movies as “The Untouchables”, the Oscar winning “Dances with Wolves”, and “The Bodyguard”, and Madeline Caroll displays an acting potential way beyond her young years. Dennis Hopper, Kelsey Grammer round out this stellar cast. See this if you can get a chance.