Pseudo-sensitive bro-dude rom-com Date and Switch comes out today, and it already feels dated. It s about two high school buddies that cope with the knowledge that one of them is gay. The subject certainly isn t dated, but the film s dull post-John Hughes, sub-Judd Apatow style of comedy is like a just-buried time capsule full of accumulated clichés. You can practically hear a young Anthony Michael-Hall saying Date and Switch dialogue like This is an American tradition. Having sex by prom is a story told over and over again by our greatest writers.
Advertisement
But a lack of on-screen charisma isn t what sinks Date and Switch . Many of the film s jokes fall flat, like when straight kid Michael (Daniel Braun) nervously nettles his just-out-of-the-closet friend Matty (Hunter Cope) by saying Matty aspires to handle the scrotum of other men. Date and Switch similarly devolves into stuffy clichés when it needs to prove its sincerity. It s like a feature-length sitcom: you