I never thought that I would actually enjoy a movie that reminded me of Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan's Night at the (Fucking) Roxbury. But as it was inspired by the movie Swingers, I guess I could have easily expected this to be a better movie. Happy to hear I was right.
Swingers is a romp about a bunch of guys who traverse around Hollywood's nightlife, wooing women with their charms and gleefully discarding those who actually fall for it as if they're unworthy to bask in their aura (Aqua Velva...). They're those kinds of elitist pricks.
There's Trent (Vince Vaughn) who could breathe out his ass if he didn't spend so much time talking out of it. He's the smooth hep cat of the group (yeah...I get to use that term in this review...), never shutting up (classic Vaughn) and trying desperately to add the word “baby” to the list of household pronouns. Accompanying him is Mike (Jon Favreau), a stand-up comedian who spends his days wallowing in misery, mourning over a failed relationship from a half-year ago, ignoring the life he has made for himself and focusing on the life he lost with his love Michelle.
As an attempt to get Mike's mind off of things, Trent sets up an impromptu trip to Las Vegas which plays out just about as smoothly as a bunch of science nerds in a strip club who don't understand the concept of boobs. However, because these two are just that “money” (a slang term meaning “apparently worth at least a dollar if viewed from a distance”), they find a couple of honeys for a frivilous night of...talking about Mike's failed relationship.
With that being a horrible waste of time, Doug and Steve...errrr...Trent and Mike head back to Hollywood to spend 40 minutes doing pretty much the same thing with pals Rob, Charles, and Sue (a guy...). Mike continues to wallow in misery as the other 4 Stooges try to encourage (and nag) him to get out there and try to move on to bigger and better things, watching his every move as he goes from girl to girl like the A/V Club kids at a middle school dance when little Timmy decides to walk to “the other side of the gym” (they even have the Jaws theme playing).
Swingers played to a lot of people's strengths, which was good for Jon Favreau, who did a great job at beating himself up and nervously prancing around in fits of confusion, as well as Ron Livingston (Rob) who has a natural ability to transfer the inspiration he gets from other characters in a film onto the audience. He gives a short speech in this movie that was one of my absolute favorite scenes in it because of the delivery alone. Sadly, Vince Vaughn has never stopped being this character in any other film he's played, like “duuuuh, mildly stoned” Keanu Reeves in...anything. But this movie was made for him, and needed the charisma and confidence that only Vaughn can really do.
On top of it, it was actually a pretty good story, though it spent a bit too much time partying and not enough time really focusing on heart-broken Mike and his eventual breakthrough (which just kind of gets shoved in at the last moment to remind you this movie was supposed to have a point.). It's like the filmmakers needed an excuse to party in Hollywood because they just can't get into the hotspots without bringing around a camera crew and some movie stars (if I only knew that being an A/V kid would be useful some day...). It feels great to see wallowing, pathetic Mike open up and get excited about something other than the delusions of grandeur that another chance with his girl would make everything better, but you only get a small taste and instead of delving on it and the trials that could come from a rebound relationship, the movie ends with a brush off of reality that doesn't even have the decency to throw “and they lived happily ever after...” on the screen.
All things considered, I did enjoy watching this as soon as it realized what it was doing. Sadly it took a really long time to figure that out...and Vince Vaughn, though perfect for this role, is still fucking annoying to listen to. I've been teetering on an 8 here, but with too much time lacking focus, shoving an ending down your throat while screaming “here, this is good for you,” it just didn't have enough charm and draw to make me really want to come back to bask in its aura (still Aqua Velva...) again. With hesitation that I might be a little harsh here...and with a lack of desire to be a pansy reviewer afraid of commitment with this “.5” bullshit (let's not discuss the name of this post, shall we?), Swingers gets a 7 dustbusters out of 10 from me.
I'd still put it in my queue though, if I were you.
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