Oh, silly Bud Johnson. Will the guy never learn? He’s a drunk, but a lovable drunk — the kind of guy who wakes up late for work, hits up the bar at shift’s end, and passes out in his pickup truck as his motherless daughter waits at home. Apparently, his alcoholism is tame enough that social services hasn’t yet hauled off 12-year-old Molly (Madeline Carroll). But as she sits with Bud (Kevin Costner) while they fish on the banks of a river one sunny afternoon and asks her scruffy father if she can go to school yet, it’s clear that she is the more responsible of the two Johnsons.

As silly, sappy, and slapsticky as “Swing Vote” tries to be early on, there’s no getting around the realization that Bud is just about the most apathetic American we’ve ever met. He loves his daughter, or at least he says does, but he’s a far better drinker than he is a worker, and when Molly asks him if he’s going to vote for president in the upcoming election, we’re not quite surprised (nor is she, really) that Bud doesn’t know who’s running. Director Joshua Michael Stern (a onetime writer for the reality TV series “Survivor”) plays it silly, as if Bud’s willful indifference is a kind of innocence or purity. But given the way things turn out in this cynical, confrontational film, one wonders if it was Mr. Stern’s decision to go goofy at the outset, or if it was the decision of a studio executive concerned that the film was mocking its audience a little too directly.

In a clever premise, the nation’s presidential election, between incumbent Republican Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer) and contesting Democrat Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper), all comes down to the five electoral votes of New Mexico. As officials tally the state, and as the nation’s news anchors (just about every major face in cable news makes an appearance) turn their attention west, the contest bears down like a tornado on the rural burg of Texico. Going back through the voting registry, election officials find Bud’s name. It turns out that when he didn’t show at the polling precinct, Molly tried to vote for him. But a computer mishap has left the ballot unmarked, and, according to state law, he has a right to recast his ballot. The entire election hinges on his vote alone.

It’s around the time that Bud is called a “schmuck” by a political operative on one of the campaigns that “Swing Vote” enters more interesting territory. The press descends on Texico, but instead of news reporters with notebooks and pesky questions, Bud is hounded by cameras and bright lights. He’s more a star than a story. When he opens and closes his front door, they get the shot; when he goes on a ride in a limo, the cable news stations cut in with a live feed. As the reporters-turned-paparazzi turn him into a celebrity, we see that most ordinary Americans seem less worried about the results of the election than about catching the latest Bud pics in Us Weekly.

Before long, the two candidates have found their ways to this town they have never heard of in a state that wasn’t supposed to matter. President Boone invites Bud aboard Air Force One and tries to woo his vote through fearmongering, describing himself as not merely a public servant but the man with his finger on the button. Greenleaf, whom Mr. Hopper plays as an empty shell of a human being, adopts a different strategy: He throws Bud a big party and asks him to take the stage and perform some of his amateur rock tunes. Greenleaf makes Bud feel like a hero. In the days leading up to the recount (there is a 10-day window), reporters try to ask Bud his opinion on a number of the issues on which the election has suddenly ceased to hang. With every utterance, Boone and Greenleaf and their respective brain trusts rush to reposition themselves. Bud hints that he might be against immigration, so Greenleaf, a pro-immigrant candidate, declares that he will fight to seal the borders. President Boone, who has essentially sold out the environment to corporate interests, declares Bud’s favorite fishing hole a protected natural preserve.

As the two candidates focus on winning and Bud becomes drunk on celebrity, the focus of “Swing Vote” slowly drifts back to Molly — standing in for the oft-cited “youth movement” — who is disgusted by the whole scene. She’s been reading the mail that’s been pouring into the Johnsons’ house from thousands of Americans who are pleading with Bud to make the decision that will help them with their particular problems. With Bud scheduled to moderate his own presidential debate, Molly sits down with him at breakfast one morning to fill him in on what Americans want for the future. But Bud barks back that he doesn’t want to talk about this election anymore.

His frustration in that moment is not a manufactured emotion. Plenty of people in this country have, like Bud, shut out the unending blare of election politics. The modern presidential campaign is something stressful and polarized, better left to the pundits and the paparazzi. Mr. Costner, who does little more in this movie than look drunk, delivers one stunner of a closing speech, when he sits down at his debate, apologizes for his inadequacies, and strives to make the decision that his fellow Americans want him to (if only it were that easy). The victory in “Swing Vote” is not that Bud votes, or that the politicians eventually rediscover their principles (ditto); it’s that Molly convinces Bud to start talking, and caring, again.

Politics are too important to be left to politicians.

ssnyder@nysun.com