First-time writer/director Dylan Kydd makes a distinctive debut with this comic, acerbic portrait of a glib, arrogant Manhattan bachelor introducing his dorky 16 year-old nephew from Ohio to the intricacies of casual sexual conquest.

Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott) is a sleazy, cocky, misogynistic advertising copywriter who believes he knows everything about manipulating women, bragging, "Words are my stock in trade." (He got his "dodger" nickname as a child who could talk his way out of sticky situations.)

"Ten to 15 generations from now," Roger observes as part of his boozy verbal sparring, "Men will be reduced to servitude. Technology and evolution will have combined to exclude sperm from procreation and our final destiny will be to perform heavy lifting and wait for that day when...our gender's last remaining utility is lost forever."

His impressionable nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is a novice at the seduction game and eager to lose his virginity. Yet as he escorts Nick on an enlightening, all-night excursion which concludes in a subterranean brothel, Roger realizes he still has a lot to learn about what women really want.

In a plum showy part, Campbell Scott ("Dying Young") deftly succeeds in humanizing a sad, sordid, repulsive fellow, while Jesse Eisenberg (brother of child actress/Pepsi girl Hallie) conveys an innocent honesty in his awkwardly relentless search for sex. As Roger's boss and soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Isabella Rossellini is wisely restrained, while Jennifer Beals ("Flashdance") and Elizabeth Berkeley ("Showgirls"), as the female foils, offer some surprisingly candid sex talk.

Notable for writing witty dialogue filled with trenchant, if perverse, psychological observations, Dylan Kydd juxtaposes photographer Joaquin Baca-Asay's frantic, fast-paced hand-held camera work with slow, verbose, intimate encounters, and the ending is artfully ambiguous.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Roger Dodger" is a scathing, disturbing 6. As Kydd puts it, "It's about the pains of growing up, no matter how old you are."

And, for those who are curious how a first-film gets financed, Dylan Kydd credits a casual encounter in a coffee shop. "I was sitting in a cafe in (Greenwich) Village when Campbell Scott walked in and sat down one table away from me. It was like a signal from my reptile brain, a caveman instinct," he recalls. Scott, who is rarely approached with unsolicited material, was receptive and liked the part. And the rest, as they say, is history. Scott agreed not only to star in the project but to help get the script to other actors and the producers who would supply the financing.

Recommended: Yes