Review of Swingers (2009) by James R — 11 Jul 2013

Swingers is kind of like Seinfeld. It's a movie essentially about nothing, involving characters who do a whole lot of not much, and yet it somehow manages to become a cultural icon, one of those movies that everyone "has to see sometime in their lives." The question, however, is if it really deserves that status.

On the one hand, Swingers is one of a few movies that captures the attitude of mid-90's Los Angeles, including the carefree party-crashing and the swing-dance craze. It also coined several phrases that one still hears in conversation even today, like "money" and "it's on!" and even "vegas, baby, vegas!" It also gave Vince Vaughn his big break, as far as I know. On the other hand, the characters and their antics are quirky rather than funny, the plot is interesting rather than exciting, and all the things the characters do are very random, which makes the movie's themes hard to follow. In this respect, Seinfeld may have the upper hand, as shadowing random characters doing random things in a random storyline is a lot easier to do in 22 minutes than in almost 2 hours.

All in all, I found myself relating to the characters' general situations, but not to the characters themselves. Vince Vaughn, like every "guy who gets all the girls" was cocky and brash and sometimes funny, but just as often proved annoying--like every "guy who gets all the girls" does. Likewise, Jon Favreau was pathetic in the way we all have been over a girl at one time or another, which made him alternately tough to watch and amusing, but the movie put such an emphasis on how pitiful he was that it bogged the rest of the plot/action down in his malaise. Yes, that effect made the happy ending that much happier, but I question whether making him slightly less of a sad sack would have ruined that. Also, more swing dancing would have been cool. The one scene was great, two or three would have been even better.

In conclusion, this movie did not suck, but it wasn't quite as money as it thought it was.