MEN BEHAVING COOLLY

By RICHARD CORLISS

Four guys hang out, kid one another, get into scuffles and flash their gonadal searchlight for available women. Yikes, haven't there been enough variations on the multiple-buddy movie? Actually, no. The funniest thing about the comedy Swingers, written by its lead actor, Jon Favreau, and directed by Doug Liman, is how smartly it spiffs up a tired formula. Just add wit, craft and--it's a dirty word, but we've got to say it--heart.

Swingers: that word is not so much dirty as stale. It evokes the musty air of Rat Pack swagger, when Frank and Dino passed for arbiters of hip machismo. Man, did the chicks dig it! Anyway, that's what the young L.A. layabouts in Swingers pretend to think, playing it oh so cool with the "babies" and thinking they're classy when ordering pricey Scotch--something with "Glen" in its name. They bop to the knowing bounce of Louis Jordan, Bobby Darin, Basie and Bennett and the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy band, and check out Sinatra Night at the Lava Lounge. Las Vegas is Lourdes to them; they drive there in the hope that some casino boss will think they are "money" (it's used as an adjective meaning radiating success) and offer to put them up in "the Rain Man suite."

Life, alas, is a bit harder on these un-moneyed dinosaurs of style--all aspiring actors--than it was on the cast of Ocean's Eleven. Rob (Ron Livingston) has done Hamlet off-Broadway; now, if he's lucky, he can play Goofy at Disneyland. Sue (Patrick Van Horn), perhaps compensating for his girl's name, picks fights with punks. Even Trent (Vince Vaughn), the cute one, has problems; he's so at ease with his boyish charm, he's forgotten that maybe it's time, at 24, to grow up.

These three are cheerleaders to depressive Mike (Favreau), an actor-comedian who is having trouble getting over a fizzled affair. Six months later, he's still miserable and can't stop talking about it. Each buddy has to be Mike's personal shrink; every potential date becomes his antsy big sister. He can't follow the rules of romantic pursuit. You're not supposed to call someone you've just met until two days have passed; it's uncool. Yet after getting a promising phone number, he rushes home to leave a voice message, half a dozen times, becoming more agitated or glum with each call--six degrees of desperation in three minutes.

The film isn't desperate; it bends to the mood of each scene. Liman knows where the human comedy in Favreau's engaging script is: at the edges of the film frame, in the taut corners of a sensitive loser's mouth, in an unheard "I love you" (the film's subtle climactic shocker) on the other end of a phone line. He also gets super work from the whole cast--especially Vaughn, whose blithe charisma could make him the star Trent only dreams of becoming.

Despite some rough edges and language, this is at heart a beguiling fantasy of comradeship. Mike's pals, the most attentive male support group since the Three Musketeers, shed tears of joy when he's lucky and apologize when they do wrong. The women in the film are treated generously too. All this helps Swingers work as both a guys' movie and a date movie. Check it out soon. And if you happen to sit next to an attractive stranger, try not to talk about your broken heart.

--By Richard Corliss