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Doug Liman’s follow-up to his indie hit, Swingers (1996) is a standard issue Gen X comedy – an assortment of sexual and drug references mixed with a car chase, a gun and a roster of bunglers muddling their way through a fast-paced storyline, its high points offset in equal measure by it lows, the net effect mildly entertaining but ultimately time filling, if not outright time-wasting..

Sarah Polley plays Ronna, a supermarket check-out chick whose attempt to make some easy money with a quick drug deal lands her and her friends in hot water. The film replays more or less the same set of events in three versions: firstly Ronna’s, then her workmate and part-time dealer; Simon (Desmond Askew), a likely English lad who's visiting Las Vegas with a party of friends; and two actors, Zack (Jay Mohr) and Adam (Scott Wolf) to whom she tries to sell drugs. A fourth act neatly wraps up the night that didn't go as intended for anyone.

John August’s well-crafted script moves along at a fair clip mixing some tried/tired and true gags with moments that are genuinely amusing. Given this foundation, Polley is the best thing about the film, her coolly cynical character adding an edge to what is pretty familiar material that suffers from an indifferent ending and too many characters that simply evaporate, not that there is enough invested here for us to really care.

 

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