Review of Swingers (2009) by Karl V — 06 Dec 2009

Just rewatched this low-budget gem last night. After living in LA for 1/2 a year now, and being about the same age as the characters, it rings so much more true for me than ever. Probably because I'M ALL GROWS UP AND I'M ALL GROWS UP AND I'M ALL GROWS UP.

For the first half of the movie, I was thinking...damn...I don't remember this shit looking so cheap! I mean, you can obviously tell this was made on a shoe string budget. I was also worried that I wouldn't like it as much.

But then things started kicking ass again. Vince Vaughn's views on women and relationships are oddly, EXACTLY ON POINT. I've always prided myself in saying that the one thing Hollywood has NEVER been able to get right has been relationships. Take the recent Adventureland, for example. Here you have a hopeless geek who has no direction in life, no ability to attract women into his life..and yet he lands the hottest chick working at the park? NO. NO. God damn it NO. He doesn't deserve her. She's not attracted to him...no matter how "funny" you are or "nice" you are...no matter how much the audience is rooting for you because you're a pathetic loser who just needs that one chance to prove he can win over the girl's heart....PUKE. I hate that shit so much.

Not the case in Swingers. Vinnie Vaughn tells Favreau, and I quote: "You got these claws and you're staring at these claws and your thinking to yourself, and with these claws you're thinking, "How am I supposed to kill this bunny, how am I supposed to kill this bunny? And the bunny's scared Mike, the bunny's scared of you, shivering.And you're thinking to yourself, you don't know what to do, man. I don't know how to kill the bunny. With *this* you don't know how to kill the bunny".

This ridiculous, off the-bronze-wall description of man's relationship to women is actually 100% more on point than the classic geek win's girl's heart over formula. Trent tells him, you're not going to get her calling you back by talking about ICE CREAM CONES AND PUPPY DOGS. Amen baby, this swinger knows the game. You gotta go in HARD BABY...you can't go in soft, you little bitch Jesse Eisenberg. (Sorry Eisenberg, I'm still kinda pissed about Zombieland).

Anyways, while on the surface, this movie is strictly about LA bars, people who put on a front, and dating, at its heart is a huge motivation for anyone trying to move to LA, make sense of their lives, and get their foot in the door.

To anyone not trying to do this, and to anyone who disagrees with the film's rare views on dating women because our film world has been conditioned otherwise, this might not ring as true with you. And that's okay.

Manifest destiny, baby...and knowing this film exists motivates me to kickass in Cali. Fuck I love this movie.

VEGAS BABY, VEGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS.