We Are Your Friends (UK Rating: 15)
It’s not so long ago that a Zac Efron film meant Box Office queues and blockbuster takings. Not anymore, though. In fact, his latest offering, We Are Your Friends, was one of the least successful films ever at the American Box Office. It has a chance to redeem itself with its DVD release this week
Cole (Efron) is an aspiring DJ in California, living with a group of friends, all of whom just about scratch a living by doing this ‘n’ that. He spends his spare time working on his music and a chance meeting with a big name DJ, James (Wes Bentley), promises great things. The older man takes him under his wing, opening doors, and giving him the benefit of his experience. When Cole starts to take an interest in James’ girlfriend, however, his future looks uncertain again, and things aren’t improved when a party has tragic consequences.
It is clearly a film aimed at a certain age group – in his mid-30s, James is the oldest person, and over the hill – which makes the audience assume that director Max Joseph and his crew actually know and understand their audience and the world they are portraying. It doesn’t take long to realise that’s not the case, though, with the film moving along at such a speed that there’s hardly any time to get to know anything and anybody. It’s a superficial film about a superficial world.
The subject matter doesn’t help either. Music can be tricky for the movies, especially when it comes to composing, but if it’s of the conventional variety, then playing it on an instrument at least holds some interest. Not here, though, because it’s all put together on a laptop and heard through a pair of headphones. It needs more experienced and creative hands than Joseph’s to hold on to the audience, so he tries to do it with an equally contemporary sub-plot. The film is set at the time when the bottom fell out of the US housing market, so Efron and his friends take jobs at a real estate company, exploiting people who are losing their homes, but as an attempt to give the movie some grit and gravitas, it falls flat on its face. Anybody interested in the housing collapse in the States should watch 99 Homes instead.
None of the characters are especially engaging, and even Efron’s own efforts – he took DJ’ing lessons from DJ Alesso, who puts in a momentary cameo – don’t amount to much, and the best of an unimpressive bunch is Wes Bentley, who looks increasingly rough around the edges as the talented has-been who takes Efron under his wing. The rest of them, Efron’s trio of friends in particular, are simply irritating, hanging round, making lots of noise and doing little else. Even the involvement of one of them in a tragedy towards the end doesn’t make much difference.
