director
Doug Liman
screenwriter
Jon Favreau
producer
Victor Simpkins
cinematographer
Doug Liman
music
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
The Jazz Jury
Justin Reinhardt
editor
Stephen Mirrione
cast
Jon Favreau (Mike Peters)
Vince Vaughn (Trent Walker)
Ron Livingston (Rob)
Patrick Van Horn (Sue)
Alex Désert (Charles)
Heather Graham (Lorraine)
Deena Martin (Christy)
Katherine Kendall (Lisa)
Brooke Langton (Nikki)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 96m
u.s.
release: October 18,
1996
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other doug
liman films
reviewed on this website:
- the
bourne identity
- go
- mr.
and mrs. smith
|
In
Swingers, the twentysomething guys sit around talking
about women -- or, more precisely, "babies" -- and
comparing notes on how to land them. Swingers, of course,
is the latest illegitimate child of Diner, and bits of
it are genuinely sharp and funny. But the movie is also the very
latest in ironic, post-everything comedy, with hip references
and an obscure lingo -- like Trainspotting
for lounge lizards. And do we need another affectionate
look at hapless Gen-X guys?
Directed by Doug Liman and written by one of its stars, Jon Favreau,
Swingers is a clearly autobiographical L.A. story. The
guys are all aspiring actors who grumble about the demeaning
stuff they audition for; one character is up for the role of
Goofy, but loses it to someone with "more theme-park experience."
We've seen the type in many independent movies lately, from Swimming
with Sharks to Leaving
Las Vegas. But this isn't a movie to wallow in the despair
of being a little fish in L.A.'s big pond.
The two main characters, struggling stand-up comic Mike (Favreau)
and retro-slick actor Trent (Vince Vaughn), will remind some
of Jules Feiffer's clueless guys in his "Bernard and Huey"
strips and his script for Carnal Knowledge. Those guys
were baffled by the emerging feminism of the '60s. Mike and Trent,
by contrast, are fin-de-siecle single guys. Decades of
pop culture have given them an ironic awareness of every move
they try on women. They're watching themselves imitate the icons
they grew up on: Travolta, the Fonz, even Woody Allen.
Some of this is engaging, and the leads do carry you along. Favreau
is likably flustered and unsure (despite a troubling resemblance
to Steve Guttenberg); Mike, who still carries a torch for the
woman he left in New York, tells himself that nice guys finish
last -- that women don't respect men who respect them. Trent,
played to suave near-perfection by Vaughn, agrees that nice guys
finish last, so he turns himself into his idea of a narcissistic
playboy. Sex is less important to him than getting a woman's
phone number -- he digs the theater of the singles bar, the process,
the performance.
Liman and Favreau concoct a consciously derivative world for
these guys, and though it's appropriate to the movie, I got tired
of it after a while. It's too soon for homages to Reservoir
Dogs (especially when the take-off is accompanied by
talk about Tarantino), and Liman stumbles when he mimics the
Copacabana tracking shot from GoodFellas; he lacks Scorsese's
gliding technique and seemingly spontaneous choreography. The
scene is there so you can recognize it and feel hip.
Swingers is very of-the-moment. It cashes in on the recent
lounge revival and exploits male confusion in an era when sensitive
guys are on the way out. (In these films, men are doomed never
to know what women want.) It quotes from movies that Gen-X guys
know by heart. It has its moments (the punchline of the movie
is great), but the moments don't add up to a vision or even a
quotable cult comedy. The guys in Swingers are struggling
actors in their careers and in their lives, too. They're the
stars of their own self-absorbed Gen-X mind-movies. |
