Jon Favreau's comedy about unemployed actors living in Hollywood is a piece very typical of the mid-nineties, it manages to look more dated than many films before it but this aside it is a funny and trendsetting film. It's the film that is renowned for introducing the phrases ''wingman", "Vegas baby!" and the term "money" to mean something good or great. It also helped launch the career of a young Vince Vaughn who looks surprisingly slim in this movie.
Mike (Jon Favreau) is new to Los Angeles having just split up with his girlfriend of six years, his friend Trent (Vince Vaughn) tries to cheer him up with an impromptu trip to Las Vegas where we see the less glamorous casinos and nightspots. Mike fails in his attempts to pick up a girl and they return to LA where he has more trouble chatting to women due to his problems letting go of his ex. The film takes place during the 60's swing revival in the mid nineties.
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| Trent Walker (Vince Vaughn), Mike Peters (Jon Favreau) and Skully (Rio Hackford) |
The less glamorous side of acting (not getting jobs) and the lesser known casinos off the strip give a more realistic side of life out on the west coast of America, different to what it is often painted in the movies. It's a hard movie to review because it has lost a lot of its originality in the following years and watched for the first time now makes it seem quite cliché when really this was a film that set the curve that came after it. The plot itself is slightly unsure in where its going a lot of the time and the ending is rather obvious but the writing and comedy within make it an enjoyable film.
2.5/4 Funny and sharply written, almost slacker comedy.
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