WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS – The Review

WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS presents a world populated by sex-and-cash-and-booze-crazed twenty-somethings who live to hear electronic music and dance the night away. Zach Effron stars as Cole, an aspiring “laptop DJ” in the San Fernando Valley. Cole has a soulless day job working for a sleazy predatory loan outfit headed by John Bernthal. Along with his three pals – aspiring actor/drug dealer Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), loudmouth Mason (Jonny Weston), and thoughtful Squirrel (Alex Shaffer) – Cole spends his evenings promoting parties, spinning music, and ingesting drugs. A friendship develops between Cole and bigshot DJ James Reed (Wes Bentley), a fallen former ‘superstar’ of laptop DJ-ing, who takes him under his wing. Things get complicated when Cole falls for James’ bored younger girlfriend/assistant Sophie (Emily Rataikowski). Along the way, there are more drugs, tragedies, and romances that sizzle and fizzle.

On the surface, WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS has an authentic feel. The early club scenes are vibrant and electric, with flashing lights and throbbing beats and fine bikinied bottoms. You get the idea director/writer Max Joseph knows the world he is exploring, and he knows what can make it so attractive. Other sequences, including Cole’s PCP-induced hallucinations at an art gallery, are nicely shaped, but after about 30 minutes of sexy people writhing to music and masculine bro-bonding with Cole and his Entourage-inspired homies, WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS completely runs out of steam. Its 96 minutes seem longer – the excess is especially felt in a couple of tiresome music/drug/romance montages that do nothing to advance the story. The club scenes, initially exciting, are ultimately wearying, and the movie meanders about much of the time. Even visually, the sight of Cole shrugging his shoulders to the beats isn’t terribly compelling.

It’s a shame the filmmakers didn’t take a harder look at this material as it seems like there may be a decent film trapped in here somewhere. The script offers cliché after cliché (“You used to be great…but now you’re a sell-out!” Cole yells at James). The movie’s most interesting character is the older DJ, well-played by Wes Bently (or at least he has the fewest false moments). If the film had been told from his point of view, it would have been a lot more interesting. It doesn’t help that Cole is essentially a cipher, and Effron lacks the chops to make him more than that. We’re watching a man devote himself to music and figure out what his life is going to be about, but Effron doesn’t act so much as he twinkles and wiggles and stares intently at his laptop. The star has turned in decent performances in other films but here he makes it hard to get too worked up about Cole’s dreams. The film raises interesting questions about chasing that dream and living the life of an artist, but really, how much art is involved in spinning records (or today’s digital equivalent)? Is this a skill that can make one rich and famous? Do tens of thousands of people really crowd around a stage watching someone pound on their laptop? WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS made me feel old.

Emily Rataikowski brings a heavenly presence to WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS as Sophie. Her job is to look good, something she excels at, but Sophie’s actions are dictated by the artificial demands of the plot and by the two men at the center of it so she’s little more than a pawn. Perhaps with some script polishing and better-developed characters, WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS could have been worthwhile, but what’s on the screen is tedious and uninspired. Despite an unconvincing coda involving one of Bernthal’s swindled victims, the more you think about what really happens in WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is. Not recommended.

1 of 5 Stars