In “Swing Vote,” Kevin Costner plays a character bloated and besotted by booze. He meanders through the film, trying to add poignancy to the man-child character so often embodied by the likes of Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. Unfortunately, Costner lacks the skill to do so. He lounges and leers like a movie star — too practiced, too tense. The audience is aware of how hard he wants us to believe him as “Joe Everyman” — a phrase heard more than once in this half-baked, mildly clever satire on the electoral process and the apathy of American voters.

Writer-director Joshua Michael Stern throws so many darts that not one element seems to stick with the audience. Stern is not being ambiguous about his message — he’s just a blatantly unfocused writer and a director that has left no personal stamp on the film.

Costner plays Bud Johnson, the type of guy who might generously be described as “living in the moment.” A beer away from losing his factory job, his home and his daughter, Bud doesn’t seem to care about anything. On the first Tuesday in November, his daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll, who is made to sound like a living civics textbook) makes her dad promise to vote in the presidential election in order to exercise his rights as an American. She then accidently sets off a series of events that make Bud’s vote the one that will decide the victor. Absentee ballots somehow don’t exist.

At once, the mass media, as well as the candidates themselves, descend upon Bud’s small town in New Mexico to try and get to know the real Bud. They (and the audience) soon realize that there’s really not much to him. He likes to drink, he likes to party and he loves his daughter. Taking advantage of Bud’s ignorance, the candidates (Kelsey Grammer as the incumbent Republican and Dennis Hopper as his peace-loving Democratic opponent) try to sway Bud by throwing lavish get-togethers, digging up familiar tropes from his childhood and, in the funniest portion of the film, making specifically targeted campaign commercials based on vapid comments coaxed out of Bud.

Sadly, the comedy ends there. Stern unwisely tries to turn this already unbelievable tale into something resembling a film by Frank Capra (“It’s A Wonderful Life”). At least Capra was wise enough to know that “Joe Everymen” are not exclusively idiots. Stern regards his characters in a manner that can only be described as condescending. His small-town New Mexico residents are bigoted, sexist and completely oblivious to the political turmoil that surrounds them. There are some realistic elements, but Stern seems to insist that idiots like Bud truly are what make America the great superpower of the world.

None of the actors embarrass themselves (well, maybe George Lopez as a frustrated news station manager), but they all seem a little lost, desperately trying to transcend their caricatures while delivering withering aphorisms like, “America needs someone bigger than their speeches.” For a film that devotes its second half to criticizing the U.S. electoral system, that statement feels a tad disingenuous. And all Costner is asked to do is deliver leaden punch lines and giggle to himself afterward. His delivery becomes more than a little grating by the end.

Hollywood studios are notorious for turning out films that “keep it safe” for the sake of being more profitable in the long run. It is not surprising that such a toothless satire was churned out in this volatile period in our nation’s history. One can practically hear the executive producer whispering into the director’s ear, “Make sure you show the Democratic candidate to be a total weakling, but also be careful to show lots of shots of the Republican polishing his ivy-league rings.” A film like “Swing Vote” should be fair to the characters, but the niceties seem very passé in our current climate.

“Swing Vote” was written by Joshua Michael Stern and Jason Richman, and directed by Joshua Michael Stern.