We Are Your Friends

This is a nondescript little movie that exists simply because a bunch of people were paid to make it.  I know, I know, every movie exists simply because people were paid to make it.  But movies like We Are Your Friends truly mystify me.  It holds no tension or original ideas, and it comes across as a paid holiday for a talented young cast who barely seem to have shown up in the first place.  Its sole purpose seems to be to evaporate like vapor as soon as it's over.

The film stars Zac Efron as Cole Carter, a young DJ on the rise in the LA music scene.  He lives with a small group of his friends, goes to parties, and dreams big dreams of making it in the music industry.  He has a chance encounter with a famous DJ named James Reed (Wes Bentley), who was once a huge name in the industry, but seems to be falling into a drunken stupor these days.  Still, James sees potential in Cole, and takes him under his wing.  It's here that Cole meets James' personal assistant and girlfriend, Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski), and potential sparks fly between the two, which threatens his growing business relationship with James.  None of this really matters, as the movie is just an excuse for a lot of electronic music, and footage of gyrating bodies.  There are some subplots about the dangers of drug use and the importance of a college education, but the way the movie barely touches on them, they may as well not be in here at all.

We Are Your Friends exists solely for an audience who enjoys electronic music and likes looking at Zac Efron for nearly 100 minutes.  If you don't fall into these categories, this movie's joys and purpose may be lost upon you, as they were on me.  Cole's friends who are introduced early in the film serve little purpose.  There seems to be an attempt made to create some conflict when Cole starts hanging out with James more than them, but it never builds to anything.  There is also a plot where Cole and his friends take a corporate job to make money, and Cole becomes disillusioned by his crooked boss, who he thinks wants want to help people, but is really only interested in making a profit on people in a bad situation.  Again, the movie just touches on this subject then moves on.  It's almost as if the screenplay considers adding conflict or dimension to its characters, then changes its mind at the last minute.

Is there anything worth recommending?  Well, the movie does get off one kind of creative moment, when Cole is explaining to us how his music affects his audience, and we get some animated sequences and charts explaining the impact of music on the body.  There is also a rather odd yet interesting sequence where Cole, under the influence of drugs, starts to hallucinate that paintings on the wall are coming to life, before animated paint oozes off of them and turns the people around him into animated figures.  Again, this serves little purpose to the film itself, outside of a stylistic decision on the part of director Max Joseph.  He tries to grab our attention with little splashes of creative filmmaking, but they don't register because they don't add anything in the long run.

The weeks leading up to Labor Day weekend are usually fodder for some forgettable films, but We Are Your Friends achieves a strange kind of grandeur in being forgettable.  The movie never offends really.  It just leaves no impression whatsoever, which in some cases is even worse for a film.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

0 comments