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Swingers
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by Miramax
Sales Rank: 9578
Price: $9.99
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Hip and hilarious -- critics and audiences alike are raving about this must-see comedy hit! It's a laugh-out-loud look at a fun group of friends who spend their days looking for work and their nights in and out of Hollywood's coolest after-hours hangouts! When the lovesick Mike (Jon Favreau -- RUDY) can't seem to shake a relationship rut, his smooth, fast-talking buddy Trent (Vince Vaughn -- THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK 2) decides he'll do whatever it takes to show Mike a good time! Whether laughing over martinis in smoky cocktail lounges or searching for beautiful babes on an outrageous road trip to Vegas, these young swingers are determined to rewrite the rules of modern dating! Also starring Heather Graham (AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME).
Viewer Reviews
I had been curious to view "Swingers" for many years but never got around to it until I found it for a few bucks at a local re-sale store. Being a fan of Vince Vaughn, I figured he would be worth the three dollars I dropped for this highly acclaimed indie flick. Man, do I want my money back!
For starters, is there a main character less likable than Jon Favreau's weak Mikey? The pinnacle of dislike was the maddening scene where Mike calls a girl he just met about a dozen times, leaving more and more paranoid and desperate messages. What adult does this? I might expect this from a thirteen year old, but an adult? Thankfully, the girl bluntly asks him to never call again and we are relieved that the universe has taken its pound of flesh from this most disagreeable moron. Perhaps, in a better actor's care, this unlikeable character might've had a chance to engender some empathy, but in the hands of writer Favreau, he is an expressionless clod, schlepping his way through his purposeless life. As the writer of this mess, one can only assume that this was some vanity piece extraordinaire with the writer/lead envisioning himself as the hard-talking mug dealing with heartbreak over some dame....or words to that effect.
Secondly, the dialogue is painfully ridiculous. While it's possible that people talked like this during the very brief retro movement in the nineties, I sincerely doubt they used their secret-club phrases as inexplicably often as they do here. I honestly began to wonder if there wasn't some drinking game associated with this movie wherein you chugged every time you heard the word "money" or a derivation of the word "baby," It's the only sensible explanation.
Lastly, the movie gave me no reason to like any character in the movie. There were some brief moments when the character played by Office Space's Robert Livingston had something worthwhile to say and the character Lorraine (replete with her 40s name and 40s coif - one of the frequent and pandering tips of the fedora to the hip days of yore) seems to have potential, but that's it. Oddly enough, the one movie that this reminds me of as an example of how well you can do anti-heroes and periphery-dwelling people is Napoleon Dynamite. I almost wish that he would've appeared in this movie and replaced some of their painfully cool Scotch drinks with some bleach-tainted milk. It would've been the only funny thing in the movie. Maybe I could tolerate the utter lack of concern for anything beyond the next night's adventures if these were high school kids, but these are supposed to be men making their way in life and all they do is puff up their chests, try way too hard to be cool, and piss and moan about their love lives. They are little more than insipid male stereotypes.
What about Vince Vaughn you ask? Well, try as he may to breathe life into his two dimensional role, he falls flat. The high point of the movie is his drunken take in the diner and that's only because you realize that you hate his character equally as much as the other self-indulgent stupid male clichés. Guys get drunk. Guys scam on women. Guys play video games. Money, Baby! Ugh!!
In summary, Favreau attempts to make a hip version of the Guys Being Stupid buddy movie. It's certainly a sub-genre full of possibilities but in "Swingers" it is little more than a boring, un-funny waste of time. It borrows unapologetically from many movies, from the Rat Pack vibe to the Woody Allen love-angst and through the "Diner" self-examinations, but skims only the surface and fails to support it with characters of interest, witty dialogue, or social/cultural observations. A bunch of guys go drinking in and around L.A., looking for sex, and talking about their job-less lives. How am I supposed to feel anything towards a bunch of guys who sponge off their parents while they waste their days playing Pitch n' Putt and ordering expensive drinks at Hollywood watering holes? Clearly, I didn't feel anything but contempt and frustration for the time I wasted with this self-indulgent garbage. Thankfully, I can take it back to the place I bought it from and trade it in for something else. This movie is awful.
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Swingers
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