Recount
Recount
| 25 May 2008 (USA)
Recount Trailers

In 2000, the election of the U.S. Presidential boiled down to a few precious votes in the state of Florida — and a recount that would add "hanging chad" to every American's vocabulary.

Reviews
Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.
Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Lee Eisenberg The 2000 US presidential election shocked the world. For years, the presidential elections had gone by without a hitch, but suddenly a bunch of irregularities showed up in Florida. Jay Roach's "Recount" focuses on this story. What the movie makes clear is that the US election system is actually one of the most backwards and dysfunctional. On top of that, Florida had denied thousands of the right to vote due to their names being similar to those of felons. In the end, Al Gore conceded despite having apparently won the popular vote. Michael Moore called it A Very American Coup.The movie does a good job telling the story. The main focus is on Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey, a previously renowned actor now pretty much ruined due to the recent revelations of his misdeeds) and Michael Whouley (Denis Leary), both of whom try to not only figure out what happened, but convince Florida's supreme court and then the US Supreme Court to allow the recount to continue. Although the viewer knows the ending, it's still riveting to see the inner workings of the campaign, but also the shenanigans that got pulled. Those hanging chads really screwed everyone over. And boy, was Katharine Harris a creep! Laura Dern's performance as her makes her look wacky but also makes clear that she had a vile side.Part of what I thought about while watching the movie is how different things would be today had Gore become president. It's commonly understood that he would've kept us out of Iraq, but I suspect that he would've prevented the 9/11 attacks by paying attention to the presidential daily briefing announcing Osama bin Laden's plans to attack the US (meaning that we wouldn't have had every mess that resulted from that).Anyway, it's a movie that I recommend. Jay Roach, originally known for the Austin Powers movies and the "Meet the Parents" movies, has proved to be quite adept with these politically-themed movies. He also gave us "Game Change" (about John McCain's hiring of Sarah Palin as his running mate), "The Campaign" (about an over-the-top senate campaign), "Trumbo" (about Dalton Trumbo) and "All the Way" (about Lyndon Johnson's efforts to pass the Civil Rights Act). The rest of the cast includes John Hurt (V for Vendetta), Tom Wilkinson (The Full Monty), Ed Begley Jr, Bob Balaban, Bruce McGill (Animal House) and Mitch Pileggi (The X Files).
petarmatic Who would of thought of that elections can bring so much of suspension and fun. And wow Kevin Spacey, oh boy do I like to watch him act.Well what can we say about this film and events surrounding elections of 2000? I wonder did everyone involved thought that things they were doing in late 2000 will come back to the in the fall of 2001? I doubt that anybody really knew how much world was REALLY watching, and training flying without take off and landing. Hm. Makes one think, doesn*t it? It was always interested why people in the USA vote Republican? I would never do that. If I understood well George W. Bush ushered era which was unthinkable in its cruelty to most Americans. I think it would be easier to vote Democrat in the future. Democratic Presidents are so much more fun and cute :) Makes you wish give them a blow job :) Another smiley, Kevin Spacey type :))))))
peter-bruck Guys, you don't treat a film like a party manifesto. It's a form of art. In the case of Recount it's the art of telling a recent historical event with many facts and complex situations turning it into a suspenseful drama. Directing, acting and writing are decent. Similar political movies like The Special Relationship work better in terms of dramatization and character development. Recount on the other hand is kind of busy keeping up with the facts (I don't wanna argue that all in the film is true, that's hardly the point). All in all, it's 7 out of 10 stars "for my money" (now, what kind of expression is that, anyway?).Democracy could be so easy: people vote by marking a circle next to the name of their candidate, a committee counts the votes manually, and the candidate with the most votes gets elected. End of story. The rest is BS.Unfortunately it didn't work in Florida of 2000 that way. People where prevented from voting because they shared their names with a felon (and where black, by the way, and I can't see how this wasn't the work of Jeb Bush). People's votes weren't counted because the chad were dimpled and not penetrated (yeah, I know Beavis...). People just couldn't see who they were voting for cause the chad were so confusing ....Listen, I'm not saying W. didn't win this at the end of the day (I'm not saying he did either). All I know is every voted is worth to be (re-)counted. The GOP tried everything to prevent that from happening. They did a lot of spinning, so that some of their victims would now say: but Gore only wanted to count the Gore votes... blah blah... They wanted to recount those districts where Buchanan got so many votes he couldn't believe it himself. There wasn't enough time to recount the whole state so of course smart Republicans said that that was what they wanted. One side fought for every vote to be counted, one didn't. Now, you can question the motives, but how about giving that the benefit of the doubt for once? Democracy is the right of the people to get their vote counted. Democracy means your vote won't just get thrown away. Let's be partisan about it. Cause I'm not sorry for it. End of story.
steve freeman I have been studying and writing about elections and election fraud for several years. I studied the 2000 Florida election in great detail, writing a chapter in my book, "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count" (Seven Stories Press, 2006), on the subject: "Chapter 2. Florida sets the Stage in 2000." Recount dramatizes the count-the-ballots battle in Florida after the 2000 election. In my experience, reporting on events about which I am knowledgeable often barely resemble the reality because of errors, shortcuts and important omissions which seem inevitably to be part of the process. But I saw no errors or inaccuracies at all in Recount. Everything and everyone was portrayed consistent with my understanding of what happened and the actual behavior of the cast of characters. Moreover, they amazingly touch on every important point despite the standard length film time and story-line constraints. It's obvious that extraordinary effort went into researching what happened and crafting the story-lines. Finally, it's a momentous, high drama, tightly told and cut with many powerful scenes, including the final scene of (uncounted) ballots sitting in boxes in a warehouse. The acting is as good as it gets. Whether or not you think you already know what happened, this is a highly compelling film.