Kevin Costner's Bud Johnson becomes the centre of attention when the outcome of a U.S. presidential election depends on his vote. (Ben Glass/Touchstone Pictures)The premise of Swing Vote exalts the “one man, one vote” ideal, but with a confused, hesitant script and a faux-folksy turn from star Kevin Costner, American democracy has never looked so uninspiring.

Bypassing the pesky complexities of the electoral college, this apathetic political tale posits a presidential election that comes down to a single ballot. Scrambling Republican incumbent Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer) and Democratic contender Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper) must play to a new voter base, which now consists of one semi-employed, semi-drunk Texas redneck named Bud Johnson (Costner). Tempted by a snake-like advisor (Stanley Tucci), the right-wing Boone makes a pseudo-sincere plea for gay marriage. Meanwhile, an uncomfortable Greenleaf, goaded on by his ambitious campaign manager (Nathan Lane), forsakes his lifelong liberal convictions by launching a xenophobic attack on immigrants.

Now, flip-flopping politicians deserve to be skewered, but maybe not in a movie that is so badly hamstrung by its own lack of conviction. Swing Vote has been optimistically billed as an “indie political comedy,” but any freethinking script ideas have been methodically strangled by cautious, calculated mainstream-audience pandering. Screenwriters Jason Richman and Joshua Michael Stern — Stern also directs — are filmic flip-floppers. They waffle between weak comedy and teary drama. They try on cynical satire — mostly sour without being smart — and then take refuge in unconvincing pseudo-Capra uplift.

Worse than the hedge-your-bets tone, though, is the film’s most cynical campaign promise. Richman, Stern and Costner pretend to be speaking for the working poor while they actually condescend to them, with a Ford truck full of Budweiser-drinking, Twinkie-eating, trailer-dwelling clichés.

The precocious Molly Johnson (Madeline Carroll) is more politically aware than her father. (Touchstone Pictures)Bud thinks of himself as a single parent, but actually, his precocious 12-year-old daughter, Molly, is parenting him. Played by Madeline Carroll, a super-serious, furrowed-brow child thesp in the Dakota Fanning/Abigail Breslin mode, Molly is hopped up on civic responsibility. When her dad ends up dead drunk and passed out in his pick-up on voting day, she tries to cast his vote but is stymied by a malfunctioning machine. This single stalled ballot, supposedly Bud’s, becomes the tiebreaker in the presidential race. Crack political teams and hungry hordes of media descend on the Johnsons’ home, suddenly eager to hear the thoughts and hopes of the (supposed) American Everyman.

Noted Hollywood right-winger Grammer plays Boone as a jovial PR prez, more concerned with tooth-whitening than public policy. Hopper (also a registered Republican — sorry Easy Rider fans) seems under-motivated as his “Rainbow White House” rival.

Tucci and Lane, on the other hand, are overblown caricatures. (One of our first glimpses of Tucci shows him ordering Aryan-looking campaign workers down to Florida to scare elderly Jewish voters into staying in their cars.) Not only does the advisors’ cartoonish villainy steamroll any sense of the subtleties of realpolitik, it lets Greenleaf and Boone off the hook. Potential presidents aren’t dishonest, Stern and Richman seem to say; they’re just temporarily misled.

Mare Winningham has one brief appearance as Molly’s deluded, evasive, drug-addicted mother. Winningham’s performance is predictably good, but it seems to have parachuted in from a much grittier movie — another sign of the film’s uneven tone.

Kelsey Grammer, right, plays Republican incumbent Andrew Boone and Stanley Tucci is his aptly named campaign manager, Martin Fox. (Ben Glass/Touchstone Pictures)Also dropping in are such real-life media commentators as Arianna Huffington, James Carville, Aaron Brown, Tucker Carlson and Bill Maher, along with an inevitable appearance by noted cameo whore Larry King. Racing star Richard Petty gets a walk-on role. Pegging Bud as part of the “NASCAR Dad” demographic, the Republicans send Petty to pick him up. The Democrats retaliate by getting Willie Nelson to deliver a televised invitation for Bud to come to a Texan country-style party. Cue a shameless plug for Costner’s band as Kevin and the boys hit the stage.

Costner has always had a weakness for vanity projects (think Waterworld and The Postman). Here, he’s working the scruffy charm that made his name back in the Bull Durham days, but his performance has a desperate edge. As suggested by a scene in which a reporter tells Bud that People magazine has just named him “Sexiest Man Alive,” Costner can’t hide his naked need for audience affection, his yearning for the 1980s glory days. Maybe that’s why the film bogs down into yet another story about a passed-over middle-aged man given a chance at redemption.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to concentrate on the issues of the democratic process when Bud’s droopy character arc is hogging the screen. The movie recollects its political purposes in the final sequence, in which Bud asks the U.S. to rediscover its own best ideals. Bud calls Greenleaf and Boone to account, but just as the speech looks like it could veer toward actual concerns — like health insurance or, God forbid, the Iraq war — the scene dissolves into a swell of patriotic music and a happy haze of bipartisan goodwill.

Now, Jimmy Stewart could carry off this kind of ode to understanding, optimism and basic decency. Costner’s all-American moment just feels forced.

Swing Vote opens Aug. 1.

Alison Gillmor is a Winnipeg-based writer.