| 75 |
ReelViews
Swing Vote marries mild satire with Capra-esque melodrama in a formula that works surprisingly well.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie is a genial comedy, but it has significant undertones. Like some of Frank Capra's pictures.
|
| 75 |
Charlotte Observer
The film seems like a loose and uncredited updating of "The Great Man Votes," a more serious 1939 entry.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Swing Vote is messy and its targets are relatively safe. But its aim is true. And Costner's performance hits the bull's-eye.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The thing is far too absurd and broadly played for its own good.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The mix of comedy and drama is winning; Costner couldn't be better, and the little girl is a find.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Picture's comic smarts and affecting daddy-daughter drama provide a sturdy platform for its heartfelt advocacy of informed voting and responsible citizenship.
|
| 67 |
Baltimore Sun
Costner does something difficult: In the middle of a tepid comic whirlpool, he finds the humorous aspect of inertia.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
This reasonably entertaining movie falters by trying to be both a dark comedy and a sentimental treatise on family and country.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
This one may be soft and derivative. But the actors establish a groove and stay on-message.
|
| 60 |
Empire
Ian Nathan
This light satire is unlikely to influence the forthcoming election, but Costner's in fine fettle.
|
| 58 |
Portland Oregonian
If the title hadn't already been taken by another equally strained recent comedy, the new Kevin Costner vehicle could have been dubbed "Idiocracy."
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Dusted off and brought up to date, it's still the same old Capracorn – minus the populist pizzazz he might have provided.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
A good-ol'-boy civics lesson that's too scattered to achieve its predictable goals.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
This is a killer idea for a political satire, and screenwriters Jason Richman and Joshua Michael Stern come close to realizing its farcical potential.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
As in so many essentially childish movies, it's an actual child who's always the smartest pants in the room.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Laura Yao
The film's not nearly as idiotic as its trailer made it seem, because it's not really about voting, or politics.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
Everyone, including the candidates, will recognize the importance of civic duty, leaving Swing Vote to end with swelling music and uplifting speechifying but on a completely unsatisfactory note.
|
| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
Costner (who's also a producer) plays to his middle-aged strengths in a role that exaggerates male weaknesses.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
The longer Swing Vote hangs around, the more engaging it becomes. It's twice as smart as you have any reason to expect but still only half as smart as you wish it were.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
A mainstream, eager-to-please, relatively generic endeavor, not an auteurist showcase.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
A maddeningly indistinct picture.
|
| 42 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
This potentially sharp working-class fantasy proves strangely unsatisfying.
|
| 40 |
Slate
Dana Stevens
Swing Vote isn't exactly a toothless political satire. It's something worse: a satire with dentures.
|
| 40 |
Time
Swing Vote falls from agreeable fable into wan satire.
|
| 38 |
TV Guide
Hopelessly muddled film cries out for the firm hand of a dyed-in-the-wool cynic like Billy Wilder, who would have put some teeth in its jabs at amoral politicians and blindly ambitious journalists.
|
| 38 |
Boston Globe
Swing Vote is a satire that's afraid to satirize.
|
| 30 |
Austin Chronicle
Swing Vote may muster a few easy laughs, but the film is no contender.
|
| 20 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Paints a surprisingly sour portrait of nearly all its characters, so much so that even the final-reel redemption rings hollow and forced.
|
| 0 |
New York Post
Brain-dead political satire/tear-jerker.
|
