Swimfan (2002)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Charles F. Bohl and Philip Schneider
Directed by John Polson
Starring Jesse Bradford, Erika Christensen, Shiri Appleby, Kate Burton, Clayne Crawford, Jason Ritter

Features:

• Running audio commentary by director Polson, and actors Bradford & Christensen
  
• 10 deleted/extended scenes with optional director's commentary
  
• "The Girlfriend from Hell" featurette
  

Released by: Fox Home Entertainment
Rating: PG-13
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Get Fatal Attraction instead

Ben Cronin (Bradford) is a high school senior with very promising prospects for a full scholarship thanks to his abilities in the water with the school's swimming team. He has a wonderful relationship with his girlfriend (Appleby) and all in his life seems great...until he meets Madison Bell (Christensen). She has a very unhealthy obsession with Mr. Cronin. In fact, she seduces him into sleeping with her (in the swimming pool, nonetheless, um...and no actual sleeping took place), but when he tries to let it go as a one-night stand, she becomes very obsessive and starts destroying everything that he holds dear in his life...including those people closest to him.

Have you ever seen Fatal Attraction? Well, if you take that story and add quite a bit more teen angst, you've got the idea of what this picture is all about. Make no mistake, this is not the best of films. None of the performances are anything to write home about, and the seduction scenes can come nowhere close to the same neighborhood of what we've seen in Attraction and other sultry women-as-wolf-spider flicks. Christensen and Bradford are simply out of their depth...if you'll pardon the pun. Not only that, there is absolutely no suspense created by Christensen at all and, unfortunately, without it, this film is absolutely nothing.

The DVD has more special features than the movie really warrants, but at least they tried. The audio commentary track is just average. The only thing that is clear is that the director and its two stars were more interested in recreating the aforementioned Adrian Lyne bit than they were in trying to make this something like that film with a new twist. It's also clear they thought making the leading characters teenagers would be enough to make this film "different".

As with most discs, the deleted and extended scenes really do not add anything to your perception of the film. In fact, the only idea that you get is a clear understanding of why they wound up on the cutting room floor. The optional commentary track that accompanies them just reinforces the obvious. And, finally, the most bizarre thing of all is the featurette entitled "The Girlfriend from Hell". This is another example of those featurettes that just get on your nerves. In between the cast and crew stroking each other's egos, you understand that most of Christensen's performance is a rip of Close's in Attraction. She admits it openly in one of her interview segments.

So, my recommendation is that unless you are pre-pubescent and your parents won't let you check it out, I recommend the movie they were ripping off--whoops, sorry, paying homage to, yeah--instead.