I found the music mostly uninspiring until the climactic scene, which I thought worked well enough but was not incredible. It's artist/performer-focused and not some kind of true biopic, so it will tend to suffer as nearly all fictional music films: You have to pull a hit out of your hat (or somewhere else) by the end. However, that can't excuse the rest of the soundtrack.
Poor character development. Little in the way of back stories or situations to instill empathy. Just in a rush to make its story points. Thinking back, there were few quiet moments of ordinary realism or struggles outside of the painfully-transparent hip style and the hustle to "make it" that rolls in like a freight train from the opening frames. The slant of slacker sheltered suburbanite desiring to leave the nest rather than a real struggling artist didn't help matters.
A Trainspotting-style film that actually dwells more on the DJing & nightlife and maybe less on the drugs, pubs, and crime is a great idea. Of course, that movie is titled literally off a DJ reference (trying to figure out the track the DJ is playing and steal his set list, essentially), but goes off more on a very hard drug tangent, though it worked effectively in that film. Here the drug use is lower-down but is reoccurring as a means of a story arc and that can be used for altering the vibe in various scenes. The drugs arc execution, to be fair, is strait and honest about this particular crowd the main character is with and does not get too preachy too soon. However, let me reiterate this again: Trainspotting, a film titled after a DJ culture term but that instead mostly dealt with hard drug culture, had KILLER music. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to buy the soundtrack to We Are Your Friends and it is trying to be more about the music, the guy behind the decks, and the nightlife than Trainspotting was.
You need a lot of personality, personalities, and great dialog to pull that approach off. We Are Your Friends falls far short. Even the jokes are just mildly funny. The predictability that results from the drugs theme, though its emphasis is reversed from Trainspotting, is unavoidable, and even worse, without the emotional investment in the other characters, it doesn't pay off like it could have and needed to make this a good film. Though I can't stand Larry Clark movies, a little more of Kids (especially if they were still intent on lacing drugs throughout the story... pun!), especially in the first act, would have been useful. I do not mean in terms of making it a more dominant and disturbing part of everything, or throwing in essentially prurient kiddie porn type stuff, but trading the breaking of the fourth wall main character narrating to us instead for an audience-as-voyeur or faux documentary style might have worked better. This would also allow the mundane & poignant moments to learn about these characters and develop an attachment.
There are some realistic scenes throughout, such as watching companions get through security into a big festival. How to justify showing only 3 seconds of a festival stage is beyond me. There's little attempt to draw the audience into their world in that section. It did nail certain types of promoters, though, and slightly touched-on the club scene behind the scenes. It also rightfully explored the scams and hustles even outside nightlife promoting in the ordinary world seemingly-respectable people often engage in. It gets some of the DJ "star" industry right and how success tends to happen nowadays by way of producing, though it fails to mention the issue of ghost producing or the favoritism growing towards "hot chicks" who gain instant fame at the decks at disproportionate rates to their numbers actually out there in the wild – i.e. though they make up less than 5% of all DJs or producers, something like 10-20% of bookings now are ladies, and none of them except in the gay circuit or the hip hop turntablism genre see less than stunningly-gorgeous ladies "making it" now. The famous DJ character in this movie, brings the lead character to a party with such privileged talent, but I digress. There were many times where it seemed a real DJ had advised them, but then it goes on about synced heart rates to control a crowd. I imagine they probably teach nonsense like that to celebrities-turned-DJs at whatever tutoring sessions or schools they apparently enroll in.
It's All Gone Pete Tong or Trainspotting this is not. We Are Your Friends is mostly a predictable, blown opportunity, but it had its moments. I giggled a few times. There were a few insights. It's not all tongue-in-cheek on one extreme or too euphoric and preachy on the other. Though it never rises to any major heights, I was expecting worse. It knew more of what it spoke than some other flicks on the subject, even if its execution never quite brought it all together to move me. Can you imagine moments as inspiring as Before Sunrise/Sunset or the camaraderie from great buddy movies in something like this? Little of that is present here. Yet I do not feel a strong resentment or want for my 90-something minutes back. I appreciated the lackluster attempt and the heart. It's possible studio execs in Europe literally just decided to cash in on the scene and arbitrarily chose a cheap script on the subject that was being tossed around, and the director just wasn't ready to harvest this. I can't blame the director for taking his break, and having more releases of this kind of movie isn't such a bad thing. It's not as if it's been tried as much as rom-coms or creature horror. I probably just spent an hour writing this review. Maybe I just don't value my time that much.
Poor character development. Little in the way of back stories or situations to instill empathy. Just in a rush to make its story points. Thinking back, there were few quiet moments of ordinary realism or struggles outside of the painfully-transparent hip style and the hustle to "make it" that rolls in like a freight train from the opening frames. The slant of slacker sheltered suburbanite desiring to leave the nest rather than a real struggling artist didn't help matters.
A Trainspotting-style film that actually dwells more on the DJing & nightlife and maybe less on the drugs, pubs, and crime is a great idea. Of course, that movie is titled literally off a DJ reference (trying to figure out the track the DJ is playing and steal his set list, essentially), but goes off more on a very hard drug tangent, though it worked effectively in that film. Here the drug use is lower-down but is reoccurring as a means of a story arc and that can be used for altering the vibe in various scenes. The drugs arc execution, to be fair, is strait and honest about this particular crowd the main character is with and does not get too preachy too soon. However, let me reiterate this again: Trainspotting, a film titled after a DJ culture term but that instead mostly dealt with hard drug culture, had KILLER music. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to buy the soundtrack to We Are Your Friends and it is trying to be more about the music, the guy behind the decks, and the nightlife than Trainspotting was.
You need a lot of personality, personalities, and great dialog to pull that approach off. We Are Your Friends falls far short. Even the jokes are just mildly funny. The predictability that results from the drugs theme, though its emphasis is reversed from Trainspotting, is unavoidable, and even worse, without the emotional investment in the other characters, it doesn't pay off like it could have and needed to make this a good film. Though I can't stand Larry Clark movies, a little more of Kids (especially if they were still intent on lacing drugs throughout the story... pun!), especially in the first act, would have been useful. I do not mean in terms of making it a more dominant and disturbing part of everything, or throwing in essentially prurient kiddie porn type stuff, but trading the breaking of the fourth wall main character narrating to us instead for an audience-as-voyeur or faux documentary style might have worked better. This would also allow the mundane & poignant moments to learn about these characters and develop an attachment.
There are some realistic scenes throughout, such as watching companions get through security into a big festival. How to justify showing only 3 seconds of a festival stage is beyond me. There's little attempt to draw the audience into their world in that section. It did nail certain types of promoters, though, and slightly touched-on the club scene behind the scenes. It also rightfully explored the scams and hustles even outside nightlife promoting in the ordinary world seemingly-respectable people often engage in. It gets some of the DJ "star" industry right and how success tends to happen nowadays by way of producing, though it fails to mention the issue of ghost producing or the favoritism growing towards "hot chicks" who gain instant fame at the decks at disproportionate rates to their numbers actually out there in the wild – i.e. though they make up less than 5% of all DJs or producers, something like 10-20% of bookings now are ladies, and none of them except in the gay circuit or the hip hop turntablism genre see less than stunningly-gorgeous ladies "making it" now. The famous DJ character in this movie, brings the lead character to a party with such privileged talent, but I digress. There were many times where it seemed a real DJ had advised them, but then it goes on about synced heart rates to control a crowd. I imagine they probably teach nonsense like that to celebrities-turned-DJs at whatever tutoring sessions or schools they apparently enroll in.
It's All Gone Pete Tong or Trainspotting this is not. We Are Your Friends is mostly a predictable, blown opportunity, but it had its moments. I giggled a few times. There were a few insights. It's not all tongue-in-cheek on one extreme or too euphoric and preachy on the other. Though it never rises to any major heights, I was expecting worse. It knew more of what it spoke than some other flicks on the subject, even if its execution never quite brought it all together to move me. Can you imagine moments as inspiring as Before Sunrise/Sunset or the camaraderie from great buddy movies in something like this? Little of that is present here. Yet I do not feel a strong resentment or want for my 90-something minutes back. I appreciated the lackluster attempt and the heart. It's possible studio execs in Europe literally just decided to cash in on the scene and arbitrarily chose a cheap script on the subject that was being tossed around, and the director just wasn't ready to harvest this. I can't blame the director for taking his break, and having more releases of this kind of movie isn't such a bad thing. It's not as if it's been tried as much as rom-coms or creature horror. I probably just spent an hour writing this review. Maybe I just don't value my time that much.