The potential was there, but...
"Swing Shift" is a kind of a frustrating viewing experience, because you can see potential that was for the most part not realized. A combination of below average writing with some lacklustre performances is what mainly sinks the movie. The screenplay doesn't really flesh out the characters well enough; we don't really get into the heads of these characters and learn what is motivating them. For example, Ed Harris' character is shipped out so quickly, we learn next to nothing about him before his long absence. When he returns and finds out what happened during his stint in the military, it's hard to feel what he's feeling. Goldie Hawn's character is so vague (and has so little time in the beginning with Harris' character) that we don't feel one way or another with her eventual out of the blue decision to have a relationship with Kurt Russell's character. Making matters worse is that the main players don't give it their all with their performances; while Hawn and Russell fell in love during production, I couldn't feel any chemistry between them in front of the camera. Some of the supporting players do somewhat better, especially Christine Lahti. And the period detail is quite good. But those aforementioned problems, plus the sluggish pace created by director Jonathan Demme, end up making the movie a tiresome - and frankly uninteresting - slog.score /10
Wizard-8 2 January 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3386139/35468
Pages:
[1]