Directed and Photographed by Doug Liman (Go)
Written by Jon Favreau
Starring Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston, Patrick van Horn, Alex Desert, Heather Graham, and Brooke Langton
As Reviewed by James Brundage
I love swing. I can jump, jive, 'n' wail. I can flip a beautiful baby and jump with her tonight. In my spare time, I teach my friends how to swing dance. I have seven CDs that are strictly swing music, and one that happens to have swing on it. I know the underarm turn, the overarm turn, the cuddle. I know some East coast, some West Coast, and some improv of the two. I know the Charleston, the Jigwalk. I'm working on the Hollywood Whip. Gimme time. Right now I'm listening to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's "Mr. Pinstripe Suit" reflecting.
I'd like to say that Doug Liman's hip flick Swingers started it all, but it didn't. I was interested a bit before that, but hey, I'm always into doing the new things. I liked the music about six months before I saw the movie, but it was the movie that got me started on the ability to dance this stuff.
The movie has been classified as a cult flick, but lets forget that label. It isn't a cult flick. Anything that wins an MTV movie award, the most fickle type of award ever granted (i.e. whatever's "in" at the time) is way too big to be a cult flick. Swingers is instead, something that should be cult, but isn't. It should apply to only Los Angelenos or people who like Swing music, but it doesn't. Thanks to a brilliantly witty script by the star Jon Favreau, Swingers has an appeal to everyone who's ever been in and out of love (or the hopeless romantics who are just dying for this chance).
It's got a very old plot: we open with boy having already lost girl. She's been gone for six months and she hasn't called yet. Boy (Mike, played by Jon Favreau) is under tremendous pressure from his friends to get back in the game of dating. Boy goes to Vegas with Trent (Vince Vaughn) where he spoils both of their chances of getting laid by telling his sad story to a Dorothy from the MGM Grand and talks French philosophy over pancakes with a waitress at 5 Am. Boy's friend, Rob (Ron Livingston) was Hamlet two months ago, has been in boy's situation before, and is now faced with the prospect of becoming the Disney character Goofy because he doesn't have a job. In the meantime, Trent and a boy named Sue (Patrick Van Horn) are pushing the boy to get back in the game where he ends up having an entire relationship with Nikki's (Brooke Langton) answering machine and gets to swing dance to a live performance of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Derby with new girl, Lorraine (Heather Graham).
Like I said standard story with a few twists.
The thing that is so impressive about Swingers is that it has the ability to be effortlessly cool while, at the same time, making fun of being cool. Jon Favreau puts his characters in situations as bizarre as any Stephen Wright story but at the same time, suspends our disbelief of them. Like the Nick Hornby novel "High Fidelity", Swingers offers a comprehensive view into the clandestine world of men's feelings. Sure, there are movies upon movies about the girl trying to find love and telling us about their inner thoughts, but how often do they get the same thing from us.
Doug Liman, doing cinematography for his first time ever, is a constant surprise. Armed with a stedicam he takes an entire movie down all by himself, not only operating the camera, but also being the only camera operator. He is able to handle everything from too much natural light in the Stardust in Vegas to too little light in the alleys of LA. He amazes me constantly as one of the finest cinematographers of our time.
Wrapping up my tirade, Swingers isn't a cult flick. It's mainstream. It isn't a guy's movie. It's a date movie. And, despite what the genres on the imdb tell me, its a comedy through and through. Watch it with your beautiful baby for some laughs.