Heather Graham Movie:

Editorial Review:
For anyone who wants to catch a glimpse of the Los Angeles "lounge" scene that was in vogue during the early and mid-1990s, here's the movie that virtually defined that brief but colorful nightlife milieu. As an added bonus, it just happens to be a very funny, observant story about love, loss, and male bonding among a group of friends who struggle to find decent jobs by day, and lurk through Hollywood's hottest nightclubs by night. A sort of latter-day Rat Pack, they include Mike (writer-actor Jon Favreau) and his closest buddy, Trent (Vince Vaughn), who are waiting for the big show-biz break that seems to be eluding them. Mike's twisted up about the girlfriend he left back East to pursue his going-nowhere standup comedy career, and Trent uses the word "money" as an adjective ("Man, we look totally money tonight") with such frequency that you may find yourself slipping into lounge-lizard mode after watching the movie. One of the most noteworthy indie-film success stories of the '90s, this time-capsule comedy seized its moment in the spotlight, launched several promising careers, and continues to maintain its lasting appeal. --Jeff Shannon

Swingers [Region 2] Reviews:
The answering machine scene...UGH!
2009-09-02 - Perhaps one of the best scenes in a movie - the answering machine scene absolutely made me cringe. I think that scene should be required for all boys prior to graduating from high school to ensure a smooth transition into young adult life. Oh, the silly things we do when we're young AND stupid. But we all mean well, don't we? Pathetic and yet great scene! And I think I just sort of copied that scenario which led me to come here and write this. We never learn!

Great Guy Movie
2009-08-20 - Swingers offers non-stop laughing and a wonderful insight into the world of picking up women. My only complaint was that the movie was too short; why do all the great ones have to be so short!

Waste of time
2009-05-26 - I love Vince Vaugh and thought I could sit through anything that included him. I was wrong, this is a COMPLETE waste of time.

Classic movie
2009-05-24 - It's hard to imagine Swingers has been out for so long, but it perfectly captures a time segment of American life when that style of dress, music, and life was popular.

The movie is full of laughs and any love sick guy who gets dumped by a girl he thought was the one can relate.

Okay, but didn't live up to the hype
2009-04-24 - After all the hype I'd heard about it, and being something of a fan of Vince Vaughn, I decided to watch this movie. It's okay, but as my tag line says, it just didn't live up to all the hype. I'd also grown up in L.A. so the setting had some hometown resonance, but even that wasn't enough to enliven it much for me.

None of the male characters manages to engage your sympathy, and the dialog, which I guess is supposed to be some sort of 90s era ultra-cool L.A. argot, doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard. And even if it was, it doesn't add much to the movie, which would have been more effective if the dialog was written with more normal-sounding speech. If you want to hear great inner-city dialog, try "The Sweet Smell of Success," written by the great Clifford Odets, which takes place in New York City, and was written way back in the 50s.

After a trip to Las Vegas gets the movie going, the story mainly involves a hapless bunch of unsuccessful and out of work twenty-something guys who wander from one L.A. party or pickup joint to the next as they try to get laid, desperately looking for downwardly mobile girls who will basically take pity on them. None do, at least none of the attractive or pretty ones. No surprise there.

Too much of the movie is taken up with the main character's pining away for his lost love, which would have been fine for 5 or 10 minutes, but to continually dwell on it for most of the movie again doesn't add much to the story and after a while just becomes tedious and boring. While we have all been through periods like this in our lives, I don't need to see it again in a move that I'm paying my hard earned bucks for.

The comradery shown in the movie between the friends is one of the few things that did strike a sympathetic cord, as the friends of the lovelorn Favreau character try to snap him out of his romantic funk with their rapid-fire tour of L.A.'s storied singles scene. Other than that, I didn't find a whole lot that grabbed me in the movie.

If you're a Vince Vaughn fan this movie might be worth your while as an example of his earlier work, or if the youth culture and singles scene of 90s-era L.A. interests you. Other than that I didn't find much of interest here.