Swing Vote

Swing Vote is a comedy-drama about Bud Johnson, a beer-loving, unemployed single father in a small New Mexico town whose apathy and personal failures have left him estranged from his young daughter Molly. After a mix-up at the ballot box, the outcome of the presidential election rests on his single uncounted vote, and Bud suddenly finds himself the focus of national attention as politicians, campaign staff and the media descend on his town to win him over. The situation forces him to confront his responsibilities, above all to Molly.

The film was directed by Joshua Michael Stern from a screenplay he wrote with Jason Richman. It was the first of the two features Stern has directed, followed by Jobs in 2013. Kevin Costner stars as Bud and also produced, while Madeline Carroll plays Molly. Paula Patton, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper and Nathan Lane round out the main cast, with 84 credited performers in all.

Released in August 2008, the film had a budget of 21 million USD and took about 18 million USD worldwide, so it did not recoup its production costs. Audience scores sit at 6.1/10 on IMDb from around 20,000 votes and 5.8/10 on TMDB from a few hundred votes, while the critics' rating stands at 5.3/10 from 149 reviews, placing critical and audience responses close together.