Swingers ***

Director/Cinematographer: Doug Liman
Year: 1996
Writer: Jon Favreau

Took me a long time to get around to this movie, a classic low-budget success story. I didn't have extremely high expectations for Swingers, except that I wanted it to be funny and creative like Wes Anderson's first flick, Bottle Rocket or Kevin Smith's Clerks, and sadly, my expectations were a little too high.

First off, I don't like Jon Favreau or Vince Vaughn very much. Never met them, so I'm not sure if they are as they seem in their movies, but their characters in this movie are very similar to the roles I've seen them play elsewhere, and I've never liked those characters.

Not that they are bad actors, just not my kind of guys.

I don't relate to them well, or more well put, their characters are never guys I would want to spend time with. And that was my problem with this movie... while I appreciated the script and atmosphere, and the accomplishment for a low budget... for me it comes down to the fact that I wouldn't really want to hang out with these characters. To some degree, every movie I love has characters I love, maybe they're sleaze bags, but they are such interesting or cool sleaze bags that I would want to have a drink with them, or at least interview them. Here, I think if these characters walked into a bar I'm in, I would get up and leave. Mike because he's a downer and a loser, but more because of Trent, because he's an asshole. Let me say, some people will appreciate this film precisely because of the loser and asshole duo, and if you can enjoy that, power to you. I couldn't.