Having read the book a couple of years ago, I followed the movie's production blog with great excitement.
Tucker mentioned possible Oscar nomination for the script, more than $200M at the box office and revolutionizing Hollywood.
I walked into the theater with 2 other male friends in late 20s - both lawyers, one of whom actually went to Duke. We'd been in the bar for an hour before hand so in merry mood after several beers. One of the guys just picked up the bar girl he'd been after for months, so cause to celebrate. I love independent movies. Edgy scripts. Darkness and the anti-Hollywood approach. Swingers is one of my favorite comedies in the ilk. The perfect movie for the perfect evening ...
There were 4 other people in the cinema. Hmmm. It did not seem to bode well.
And the movie begins. I began with a grin on my face, prepared to laugh my ass off throughout.
About 40 mins in, I was still waiting to laugh. One of my friends, who hadn't read the book, was yawning. Two of the others in the cinema got up and left.
So, let me cut a long story short: Poor script. Underlit. Cheap grain. Little empathy for any of the characters; no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The story arc fell totally flat. I could live with all that if the thing was actually FUNNY. Alas, I managed a couple of forced chuckles.
We left the cinema with me having to apologize to my friend for having put him through the boredom. We should have carried on drinking in the bar instead of wasting our time on this film.
Tucker tipped this as a classic of our time. I'm not even sure it would have merited a straight to DVD release. He said it would top The Hangover in both acclaim, artistic merit and box office. Half a billion dollars later, wide critical and audience reception, and marked as one of the best comedies of the year, if he'd put that sentence in the script, it would have been the funniest line in the whole movie.
