Sunday, January 18, 2009

Swing Vote - Movie Review

"Swing Vote" was our best Netflix pick in a long string of bad picks. If you haven't see the previews, it's like this: through an odd sequence of events, the presidential election comes down to one man's vote. That man is "Bud" Johnson, a worker in an egg sorting factory. He has a couple of weeks to make his decision and during that time, he's in the spotlight.

Courted by the nominees of both parties, he has to decide the next leader of the free world. All during the movie, I kept thinking, what if "Joe the Plumber" had to make that decision. Now while I might have agreed with Joe's choice, frankly I think the whole ordeal was grossly overplayed by both parties. And that's what happens in this movie.

What's interesting is to think about a given topic (say environmental protection) and where the republican and democratic candidates might stand on the topic. Then see where they stand in this movie, or better yet, where they stand when they try to when Bud's vote.

But is a single dad, with a 12 year old daughter who knows more about politics and politicians than he does. During his two weeks of fame, he and his daughter have secret service protection, yet she still manages to slip away. Bud is upset and yells at he secret service "you guys protect the President." To which they reply "she's smarter" (than the President).

During another banter with his daughter, Bud expresses his distaste for egg-salad sandwiches for lunch every day (remember he works at an egg sorting factory). His daughter explains "You want to eat better? Drink less beer."

The one downside to the movie was the profanity. Am I the only one in America upset with profanity? www.kids-in-mind.com (an excellent website for reviews) says that there are 38 instances of profanity. I think they missed a few.

Overall, the movie was a good one. I give it an easy thumbs-up

6 comments:

WomanHonorThyself said...

thanks for the tip!:)

The Elliotts said...

I'm glad you saw it and liked it. I've seen the previews and wondered if it's any good. Thanks for the review. Probably going to add it to our que.

Brooke said...

I'll check it out. I was hesitant, but it's in the queue now. :)

Profanity can be more of a distraction than a 'theme.' I feel your pain.

Brian the Red said...

It reminds me of a SciFi story I read ages ago, Franchise by Issac Asimov, about how in the future statisticians would use a computer to weed out all the voters except one and that person would then choose the President.

The story can be read online at:
Scribd

Randy said...

Woman, Kayte and Brooke. Hope you like it...

Brian, glad to know you're an Asimov fan. He's one of my favorite authors. Of course, your pointer to an electronic version of that story reminds me of another one of his - "The Fun They Had" - where a little girl finds a real book. Pretty amazing that he wrote this almost 60 years ago (1951 according to Wikipedia).

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