Review of Swingers (2009) by Joshua H — 07 Jul 2008

What do you get when you cross a whiny, heartbroken, struggling comedian with a pretentious, self loving, self proclaimed ladies man? Evidently, you get the main characters in Swingers, two of the most annoying and forgettable characters I've seen in quite some time.

The story of Swingers is thin. I can sum it up in one sentence. Mike (Jon Favreau) is hung up on his old girlfriend who broke up with him six months ago while Trent (Vince Vaughn) encourages him to act like a bear and kill rabbits, a lame and meaningless metaphor for picking up women. And that's about it. This movie is nothing more than an hour and a half exercise in debauchery and irrelevance.

Let's just get the big problem out of the way. The characters in this film are so extraordinarily unlikable, that there's no way it can win. I'm not sure whether his characters are written to be annoying and rude or he just makes him that way, but Vaughn continues his losing streak of portraying a person that revels in stupidity and never shuts up.

But he's not the worst of it unfortunately. As much as I enjoy Jon Favreau as an actor and director, I loathed his character in this film. It's been six months since he and his girlfriend broke up. He's upset. Fine. That's completely understandable. But all he does for the first hour and twenty minutes of the movie is whine about how much he misses her. I know it takes time to get over a long, serious relationship, but that doesn't mean it makes for a particularly compelling character. I did end up rooting for him near the end, but not because I felt bad for him. Rather, it was because he was such a pathetic piece of crap I was sick of hearing him bitch. The characters were poorly written (although Favreau did what he could with him) and in Vaughn's case, poorly executed.

Want a good drinking game? Here you go. Drink every time somebody in the film says "baby" or "money." Because during the movie, you'll hear lines like this -- "Baby, you're so money" -- constantly, sometimes in rapid succession. It was extremely annoying. The film tried way too hard to be "hip" using rhetoric like this and it was very distracting.

There are also a few other little problems, such as the cameraman's shadow popping up on more than one occasion, but the film isn't all bad. Although I did not find it to be nearly as funny as it was being billed, when I did laugh, I laughed big. It has some great lines and a few brilliant instances of awkwardness that even made me feel uncomfortable.

But overall, Swingers is not worth the time it takes to watch it. It has no reason to exist, no meaning to uncover, and no point. It's merely an hour and a half of watching one character quickly and drastically (and unrealistically) transform from a deadbeat to a suave and smart ladies man. You could do a lot worse than Swingers, but you could also do a lot better. Why settle for mediocrity?