Too many fans seem to be blown away

Best movie of this year hands down!

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

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).

"Recount" takes us back to the 2000 controversial presidential election (Gore vs. Bush) with the numbers problem in Florida, something that hold the election results for a brief yet suffocating period with both Republican and Democrat parties fighting for the presidency. The main characters here are the personnel representing both candidates, the Democrat team led by Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey) supporting Al Gore, and claiming for the votes recount after a gigantic difference between what TV was showing and the numbers his staff got with another source; and the Republican are led by former Secretary of State James Baker (Tom Wilkinson) who are opposed to the recount and want the result of Bush's victory to be maintained. And there's Katherine Harris (Laura Dern) holding a kind of power she shouldn't really hold.We all know what happened, Bush won, there's no surprise in that scenario but the movie never at any moment failed to make us admired of all the events behind one of the most dramatic political decisions to ever take place. There's tension, there's conflict and there's excitement. Everything's here: the numbers, the problem with the chad's, the poorest people that weren't allowed to vote, the many stances of recounting the votes, procedure problems, the Supreme Court's decision, it's all here! Don't be fooled just because you already know what's going to happen, there's so many great things and it's so thrilling to see what happened that for one moment you can pretend you don't have a clue of what's to come.This is directed by Jay Roach, known primarily for his Austin Powers flicks, and it's quite a surprise to see his name associated with this serious theme and more than that, he didn't failed. He doesn't get intimidated by the stellar cast (other directors would be) and impress us by making us follow, for the most part, the cause that will be lost, the team that is not gonna win. Promising and winning strategies that failed but with plenty of lessons learned. His most recent achievement "Game Change" (again with HBO) follows closely the McCain/Palin campaign and the whole triumphant scheme behind another important election that turned out to be lost by the Republican. To the audience that sees as this being a boring film, here comes another serious political movie deep down in its gray and uninteresting areas, well, you're wrong. "Recount" can be and it is hilariously funny, warm, easy to follow, only problematic to viewers from nations whose election system works differently than the one current in U.S. (no matter how many times someone explain it to me, I'll never get it. I would love to make this part longer comparing to how do we vote here but it's better not to). To the viewers outside of America, I insist you to watch it despite all the problems you might have, there's rewarding moments of wisdom in the movie (Baker's speech on how he changed of political party after his wife's death is one of those great moments on film that are rarely made these days).As for the acting, this has some of the greatest ever filmed. Denis Leary, Bob Balaban, John Hurt, Adam LeFrevre, Marc Macaulay, Bruce McGill, Bruce Altman, Ed Begley Jr. and others are part of the great ensemble cast that composed both teams of "Recount". However, the three outstanding performers are Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern and Tom Wilkinson. Spacey is the magnet that makes everyone involved with such deep story, he's the one for whom we cheer (even if he's playing against the party you're support you're gonna like this man); Dern makes something really impressive with the character she plays, it's part characterization, part mockery but it's not something scandalous. It's funny in the right measure, very different from a comical sketch because there's emotional, insightful lines. Wilkinson isn't the one you root for but it's certainly the one from who you get the best lessons, the best way to overcome things, a wise character.Smart, humored, critical about the political process and its machine, true to the facts, "Recount" manages something almost impossible: to present surprises when they seemed completely inexistent or hard to find. For that and more it's a must-see film, that's a fact. 10/10

The incredible mess of an election in year 2000, forever altered the worlds perception of the USA. The ridiculous fact that you can lose the election with the majority of the votes would be enough, but when the courts decide the winner, it is hard to sustain the self-deluding image of the last great Western democracy. Even if we make allowances for the artistic liberty, this smart political movie clearly shows the dire predicament in which we found ourselves. The extreme closeness of this race forced us to face the inadequacies in our system. Sadly, 10 years later almost nothing changed. The ship is sinking, and the rats will soon be leaving.

I am a liberal and thought this would be a good movie to support my views on what I believe happened in the 2000 election.I got 15 minutes into the movie to the point where they flash the news organizations calling the election and there was no mention of Faux news, I watched for a couple more minutes and shut it off.To make a movie about the 2000 election and not put Faux news front and center when they are the ones who anointed bush the winner that night is a gross injustice, an injustice enough for me to turn off the movie and anger me enough to write this.In 1988 I went to the dollar movies and seen Salsa and I thought it was the worst film ever made but I would rather watch it again than watch this garbage.Oran