Rating: R | Runtime: 96 minutes
Release Date: February 14th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Momentum Pictures
Director(s): Carter Smith
Writer(s): Carter Smith

It’s very important they don’t get damaged.

Dom (Jose Colon) might be taking his best friend Benjamin (Cooper Koch) out for one last night on the town before the latter moves to LA to become famous, but his mood is hardly celebratory. He’s barely drinking, has his face in his phone, and refuses to dance all while the guest of honor tries to figure out what’s wrong. Benjamin asks for one reason that would make it worth sticking around and we can see in Dom’s body language and expression that he wants to say, “Me.”

He won’t, though. That’s not the type of relationship that they’ve ever had or considered having since Dom has always dated women. Until now, of course, since this goodbye suddenly has him thinking otherwise. It’s got him realizing that he’s never loved anyone as deeply as Benjamin. What’s gender got to do with it?

It’s an intriguing thought that lingers at the back of what writer/director Carter Smith soon delivers with Swallowed courtesy of a parting gift. Dom wants to send Benjamin off with some cash so he asks his drug-world adjacent cousin to hook him up with a border run. Enter Alice (Jena Malone), a woman who’s willing to comply as long as Dom follows her rules—namely that this won’t be a matter of simply delivering a package.

He will need to ingest the goods and ultimately pass them upon crossing. A few more stipulations like temperature control are added, but he and Benjamin are way past processing what any of it might mean now that they’re putting foreign substances into their bodies. The questions will come quick, though, once a redneck homophobe punches Dom in the gut to trigger a painful (yet pleasurable) chain reaction.

I was really vibing with the film for the first half of its runtime. It’s tense, mysterious, and Koch and Colon provide an endearing rapport that begs for things to turn left towards romance. Finding out the drugs aren’t quite as innocuous as Alice let on ratchets up the suspense as she starts waving her gun and they desperately try to stay alive, but the product eventually proves to be a misdirect. The blossoming love under duress too (although some tender moments do keep that subplot going).

Once Alice’s boss (an unpredictable Mark Patton) joins the party, things slow to a crawl. It becomes a prolonged survival film as he and Benjamin play cat and mouse to familiar ends. Everything interesting about the premise is therefore stripped away, lingering in Benajmin’s motivations just enough to ensure the experience doesn’t completely fall apart in the absence.

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Mark Patton and Cooper Koch in SWALLOWED; courtesy of Momentum Pictures.