Switch Up (2024)

Switch-Up
Switch Up

It’s hard to believe that every film will end up how its creator set out to make. There are bound to be one or two failures in any movie which could perhaps be the stars or the writing or something else. Others just don’t get aspects right. However, in the most dire situations, as a viewer you still want to believe that there is some intention from the director to tell at the bare minimum an exciting story “Switch Up”, and even if there were some hiccups it was a flaw in the process that could have been corrected. Sadly, though, not so hard to understand.

The plot is simple and captured in a few basic details they specify right at the beginning of the movie. Centering on the dramatic details and remorseless improvisational episodes, it follows the life of the inexplicably popular local tv host Ricardo de la Cruz (Cristian de la Fuente). After southward trends start to emerge in his viewer figures, he is hired to do coverage about Cassie Harris’s (Juliet Restrepo) soup kitchen and her entourage, Texas, while he is attending a friend’s barbecue in his backyard.

He is in the middle of the shootout, making him get intercepted and named an organizer for a Ponzi scheme by FBI over the firewall his accounts are shielded. Everything tumbles, and from being a trusted American citizen, he becomes a beggar and a servant to Cassie who lets him sleep at her house until he manages to get a job. American unpleasantness that makes him cognize poverty and beer can sleeping becomes, however, instrumental in his evolution into a decent human being and makes him cross paths with a remarkably kind soul.

You more or less have an idea of what Switch Up entails just by reading its synopsis, and you would not be wrong. It is quite disappointing that for the most part, the movie has what can be termed as astounding hall mark movie aesthetics: pale, blunt and low cost. The shallow look if this filmi is its strongest distinguishing feature from those movies mentioned above. For all their cringe worthy pretensions which the plot is rather scripted, there is still a grain of honesty directed at new age hall mark movies that while really has nothing new to offer still is great and best of all has at its disposal an eternally long list of fans that appreciate it. Switch Up certainly targets it and attempts to find it by trying to please the audience through diverse narrative and visual strategies foremostly the tragic flashbacks and tearful confessions.

There are probably the few genuine or earned moments in Switch Up that are few and far in between. What are the story beats in it are at best idiotic and ridiculous, and border an insult even to the weakest of film logic.

If a person has altered a picture without permission, it begs the question whether he would be free to counter the FBI indictment picture doctored evidence meant to eliminate completely Ricardo from ever being a witness of those. The film blurs time saying that either Ricardo stays for days or weeks in Texas depending on the particular montage one is looking at.

Perhaps the most absurd is Marie, Ricardo’s producer, who however disputes this saying that she was made the target by the villain of the story who claims that she has been to some sort of a rehab. At times, this film seems to be aware that it is being ridiculous, however, the absence of any laughter and the presence of overwhelming silliness render both the carnival and efforts for parody extremely pointless. The tonal whiplash, the potency and outrageousness of this falling from groaning ineptitude to comical romance is quite frankly very hard to describe.

Even if we presume Switch Up is a parody on wealth that has been done wrong, the portrayal of homeless people is completely out of place and downright unacceptable. It is how Switch Up portrays wealth and those in poverty and devoid of any tact and respect for these people makes me sick to my stomach. In the film’s weakest moments, Ricardo manages to over hear the homeless girl tell her mother (or a motherly figure) that she does not want to sleep outside as it was, cold the previous night which seemed to be just recorded but never presented. Followed by the father seemingly clueless that the soldier who was about to sneeze just started choking, the mother tries to distract her daughter by bringing her a toy followed by retakes where they both seemingly are set to pray. On paper itself, it is deeply shallow manipulation where it was greenlit by executives for one reason only, to shove a “unique” experience down the throat of their consumers. It was all. Absolutely nothing about the cinematography was unique, creative or even commendable as they gone ahead and portrayed something in my eyes as America’s most critical issue, in a somewhat comical style.

Strangely enough, in this film the most interesting part that has been developed and made real is the bond between Ricardo and Cassie. However, the argument Cassie loves Ricardo is completely ludicrous but, how is it possible that he was not the one she wanted, so what was their love built on?

They overlook everything that suggests they should not be together, because they feel a connection and see within themselves something so forceful.

Though Restrepo and de la Fuentes get commendations for their effort above, there unfortunately is not much on the page which validates their efforts. It does not take much imagination, however, to envisage a less cynical world where Ricardo and Cassie are able to see eye to eye and therefore are able to work towards building a life together. Such occurrences are exceedingly rare as I mentioned before, and so we end up with relatively bland narratives and awkward dialogues that render any traces of chemistry that the lead couple may have been able to create moot.

Sadly, for all the discussions of private prisons, Switch Up does not succeed on any level. But, the failure of this project is not a failure issue, per se. However, the issue is how it tries to be self exonerative strategies around this failure, be it in the past or the present, which is why it is a failure. There’s something instinctual about wanting to be lenient with a movie that says it seeks to solve such an important social aspect as homelessness. But with its tonal shifts and narrative missteps with condescending and borderline disrespectful reproductions of the crisis, Switch Up does not earn such leniency. Its hard to imagine that of this large ensemble, no one on this large team of actors and filmmakers saw something wrong with this film.

The level of concern and cynicism suggested is such chilling that it’s fair to assume that no one was able to offer a different viewpoint.

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