What are the chances for an election to depend on one man’s vote due to a ballot error? And what are the chances for that man to be a loser who never voted in his life and doesn’t have a clue about the world he lives in? Well, in movies everything is possible, so here we have Bud Johnson, a blue-collar worker and single dad played by a quite charming Kevin Costner, on whose vote depends the presidential election.

Bud lives in a small New Mexico town and can’t wait to finish his job in a chicken-processing factory, so he can go and do his favorite activities: drinking and neglecting his 12-year-old daughter Molly.

Molly, who is excellently played by Madeline Carroll, is forced to do everything that her father doesn’t: she cleans, cooks, goes to school and manages, in spite of these, to be a brilliant student. She also keeps writing essays about the importance of civic participation, which you would hardly expect from a 12-year-old, and always wakes her father from his state of drunkenness.

The problems for ignorant and careless Bud start when he decides to please his daughter and goes to vote the next president. But, due to a glitch in the voting machine, Bud’s vote didn’t count and is scheduled to be recast, which means the election’s result will depend on the lazy, hard-drinking worker.

And now the political circus begins, with the two presidents, the incumbent, President Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer), and his Democratic challenger, Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper), each trying to get Bud on his side. The two candidates immediately change their campaigns to suit Bud’s desires, meeting him, trying to please him. In short, the American political system is laid out with all its flaws, corrupted and ridiculous. Even though the satire might exaggerate the parallels between the movie and real life, Kelsey Grammer, who plays President Boone, says that the parallels actually exist. He says that the political process is based on changing the electoral speech depending on the group of people the politicians address.

But the main idea, which Kevin Costner also appreciated, is that one person can matter and make a big change.

“I thought [the script] was smart. I thought it was funny, and I thought above all, it was moving without trying to be,” Costner said, as quoted by CNN. “It's not a public service announcement, but it probably is more effective than any one you could actually put forth.”

Madeline Carroll also declared herself satisfied with the movie, saying that every message that the film delivers hits you “like a paintball gun.”

“I hope people walk away with every single one of those,” she added, according to CNN.