"Swing Vote" is a kind of horror film, inspired by the ghoulish election of 2000: What if the presidential ballot were so close -- both candidates tied in the Electoral College -- that the winner would be determined not by 400 votes in Florida but by a single vote in New Mexico?

In this unlikely version of that unlikely case, the historic outcome rests with good ol' boy Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner). Can he rise to the occasion?

He can't even rise out of bed, without the nagging assistance of his 10-year-old daughter, Molly (Madeline Carroll). He consumes massive quantities of his namesake beer to anesthetize the memory of a wife who left him and the reality of a lousy job in a chicken-and-egg factory, from which he's about to be fired. He's a foul-mouthed ignoramus and proud of it -- but fond enough, in his way, of his girl.

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'Swing Vote'

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

• Starring: Kevin Costner, Madeline Carroll, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper.
• Rating: PG-13 for language.
• Movie trailer: youtube.com

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She, on the other hand, is a precociously idealistic little thing. (Asked what she wants to be when she grows up, she replies, "either a veterinarian or chairman of the Fed.") At the moment, she wins her class essay contest on a timely theme: the civic responsibility to vote. When Bud fails to show up as promised at the poll, Molly sneaks in and does his duty for him. But there's an electronic glitch, and the vote isn't counted. When the local tally, like the statewide one, results in a tie, Bud is federally informed that he must recast the tiebreaker -- for the whole nation.

Uh-huh.

Well, the media descend and the candidates are atwitter: Both the incumbent Republican airhead, President Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer), and his fatuous liberal Democratic challenger, Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper), are forced into a 10-day runoff campaign aimed at an electorate of one lone trailer-trash redneck.

Costner does his best in this neither-fish-nor-fowl dramedy, squeezing out the scant few laughs director-writer Joshua Michael Stern's script provides him, while young Carroll squeezes out more than a few tears. Most entertaining, however, are the two sleazy campaign managers (Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane), desperately courting Bud and willing to do any cynical thing to sway him.

"Swing Vote" has exactly three hilarious moments, in the form of flip-flopper political commercials: Boone touts his sudden shockingly warm embrace of gay rights. Greenleaf has two: One hails his newfound anti-abortion stance, with kids on a playground disappearing one by one in puffs of smoke (as if aborted). The other features a horde of aliens crossing the border behind him as he rails against illegal immigration.

Virtually every political analyst in video captivity -- Larry King, Tucker Carlson, James Carville, Arianna Huffington, Chris Matthews -- puts in a cameo appearance, along with Willie Nelson and Richard Petty. Grammer and Hopper have campy fun, in and out of Air Force One.

But overall, the material is lame as well as farfetched, and whenever the melodrama rears its ugly head (Molly longs for her wayward mom), the flicker of comedy fizzles.

This is one man, one vote too many.