Roger Dodger (2002)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written and Directed by Dylan Kidd
Starring Mina Badie, Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Berkley, Jesse Eisenberg, Isabella Rosellini, and Campbell Scott

Features:

• Director’s Preface to the DVD features
  
• Examination of a Scene: Opaline
  
• Deleted scene with commentary by director Kidd
  
• Location walking tour with Jesse Eisenberg
  
• Running audio commentary with Kidd and director of photography Joaquín Baca-Asay
  
• Running audio commentary with Kidd, Scott, and Eisenberg
  
• Player’s Guide to Scoring with Women
  
• Trailer
  

Released by: Artisan.
Rating: R
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes.

My Advice: Rent it, but if you really loved Swingers, you may want to own it.

Roger (Scott) is a promotion-hound advertising writer with two gifts: dimestore psychoanalysis and gab. The two are a dangerous combination that makes him lethal with the ladies. This includes the head woman in charge at his advertising agency (Rossellini), whose been violating several corporate ethics lessons to shack up with Roger on a regular basis, though as the film opens it becomes plain she’s a bit tired of it.

This uncanny knack for getting into skirts draws Roger’s nephew, Nick (Eisenberg), to the big city, in hopes of a few pointers about the fairer sex. Not being one to turn down this kind of a challenge, Roger leads Nick around the nightlife of NYC on a crash course in seduction that doesn’t precisely go according to plan. Nick finds his confidence, Roger finds his soul, and both learn a little more about women than they knew before the night started.

Their travels through the night take the duo from trendy nightclubs to crashing a company party to a seedy sub-basement brothel. Throughout, Roger is the consummate smooth-talker, a bizarre combination of drill sergeant and Jedi master, urging Nick to tap into the latent aura of sexuality that permeates all space and time like the Force.

Quite simply, this film is an actor’s showcase. There is no action, there’s only a vague suggestion of plot, and the entire success or failure of the entire picture hinges on one thing: dialogue. While nothing can be taken away from the talent pool that graces the screen throughout the film, Campbell Scott schools them all. Scott’s performance is quite possibly a career-high kind of moment, and the machine-gun delivery of his lines keeps the film moving throughout.

The DVD is loaded with features, with a pair of commentary tracks (one technical and one the more traditional laid back bull session). The features are assembled very particularly as a walk-through of the film-making process, including details of location selection, cinematography, casting, and direction. It’s a bit more technically intense than much of the fluff thrown on DVDs to pad the release out and justify a “Special Edition” label in most cases. But for those who are as interested in the process as the product, this is a welcome surprise.

Roger Dodger makes a solid rental. If you’re really interested in the process behind film-making, the extras might elevate it to purchase status, and if you’re a fan of Campbell Scott’s, this one is a must-have.