Movie Breakdown: We Are Your Friends

The Impression:

We Are Your Friends features Zac Efron as a young fella doing his best to make it as a DJ.  It looks ridiculous.

The Reality:

If you’re a fan of movies that aren’t really about anything, then We Are Your Friends is going to impress the hell out of you.  Cole Carter (Zac Efron just existing) wants to be a DJ (you know this because he always has headphones on) but he’s stuck in his dinky hometown with no real opportunities.  Since it’s a movie though and there has to be some glorious stroke of luck, a mega-DJ named James Reed (Wes Bentley – the only thing about the film worth remembering) arrives in his life, they become pals and then KAPOW, Cole now has a chance to do what he’s always wanted to do – push buttons on his laptop in front of a large crowd of people.  Along the way there’s some relationship stuff, talk about what it means to be DJ, info on how to be a good DJ, a few things on growing up, conflicting opinions on drugs and alcohol, a variety of useless moments with Cole’s friends, and somewhere around a million other random tidbits that keep you steadily wondering exactly what the movie is actually about.  Frankly, We Are Your Friends really just needed to be about music and what it takes to make it as an artist, but it’s a film so unsure of itself that it only hints at that and instead sloppily flops all over the place and ultimately says nothing about everything.  Only see it if you’re in the mood to challenge yourself to some kind of weird patience contest.

One last note, through at least the first half of We Are Your Friends I kept thinking it might actually turn out to be a modern Flashdance, Footloose or something similar, but its convoluted, meandering story proved to be unbeatable, and that kind of bummed me out.  The world could use another wave of silly but enjoyable “music” flicks.

The Lesson:

Why the hell is it called We Are Your Friends?  I’m going to be wondering this for hours!