While this sounds like a plot hatched by Frank Capra, it is closer to that of the half-remembered 1939 Garson Kanin film The Great Man Votes, starring the sodden John Barrymore, and even closer to the hanging-chad suspense of the 2000 presidential election.
Both cynics' snarkfest and civics lesson, the ingratiating political satire from Joshua Michael Stern and Jason Richman isn't concerned merely with whether the blue-collar single dad will make the Land of Enchantment tip blue-state or red. It has more important things on its mind. Partisan politics is the satirical target, voter apathy the serious one.
Which makes Costner the ideal candidate to play the boozy bozo from Texico, N.M., who doesn't even know who's on the ballot. Using both his comic and dramatic chops, Costner guzzles the material with a looped sincerity. It's his best performance in years.
He is ably abetted by the unsmiling Madeline Carroll (no relation to the late British screen legend Madeleine Carroll), as Bud's 12-year-old Molly, as bright and worried as Bud is dim and oblivious. Molly extracts her father's promise to vote and when he fails to show up, sets in motion the film's Rube Goldberg plot.
As in many single parent/child films, Molly is the reliable one. Her undependable father is chronically late to his job in an egg factory where many are losing work to lower-wage workers from Mexico. If Bud loses his job, child services will take away Molly, whose estranged mother (Mare Winningham) is out of the picture. Who has time to listen to the candidates?
Bud's situation casts clouds over the film's sunny comedy, sharpening the proceedings and Costner's performance as the one voter who counts.
