We Are Your Friends

Its no secret this movie bombed in the box office. That didn't stop me from watching it. Zac Efron has done a lot of good movies IMO.

I really don't care about the politics of the story. Some say its just a recycled idea. Kids want to be famous, have troubles, guy wants the girl, want to get rich, blah blah blah.

I watched this with an open mind and was pretty impressed. The damn soundtrack was on point!! The music was so good that I just kept watching to listen to the music. The story was good and the acting was good as well.

For someone to say "Never watch this movie" is absurd to me. Its worth a watch or two. I plan to re-watch it with my wife. (She was sleeping at the time.) The ending of the movie was down right pleasurable and I really connected with the main character at that point.

Watch this movie and then judge. Don't ever take someone else's word on a movie until you've watched it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that this movie really touches on a certain time in your life where you are truly coming into your own. It reminds me of my own early 20's and when you don't fully realize how free, young, complicated and beautiful you are. Although it is far from perfect it is still incredibly well done to be able to capture a time in your youth where, yes, you are free and feel limitless but also trapped by your surroundings, while also facing the harsh realities of true adulthood.

All of the characters are branches of each other, some positive and some negative, but all intertwined.

Give this movie a chance and go into it with an open mind and heart, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I went to see the movie because I like another Zac Efon vehicle, That Awkward Moment. The Movie is similar as it's about Efron leading a group of men in their early twenties that really need to grow up, but That Awkward Moment was a hilarious comedy, while We Are Your Friends is more of a satire.

It's not like that other DJ movie, Eden. Both tell the story about the life of a DJ, but we are Your Friends plays out more like 8- Mile, that tells the beginning of Eminem's climb to the top. Efon's character gives a philosophy on being a DJ that I've seen in other movies about music but never about DJing, which was cool.

The movie takes the subject matter seriously, but I feel the movie takes itself too seriously. For the most part its very light hearted but then they attempt to be sophisticated. Maybe this was to explore the full aspect of the scene they live in, but all it did for me was change the vibe too much.

But overall, the trailer made We Are Your Friends look like Efron was playing an A-hole while hanging with his A-hole friends doing A- hole things, but the movie itself was much better than that, but not much better.

I was expecting to detest this movie, and I'm happy to say that I found some enjoyment in We Are Your Friends. I'm not too big on EDM; I love some of it, dislike most of it, but this movie actually painted the genre/scene in an interesting light. They add a human element to the otherwise processed and compressed music, and it's pretty captivating. At least those scenes are. Where the movie fails can be attributed to its title. We Are Your Friends shouldn't have been about friendship or having each others backs or whatever they were trying to go for because that is by far the weakest element of the movie. Zac Efron is great in the lead role, but his friends are complete throwaway characters. I didn't care about any of them. There is one scene near the end where the friend arc almost pays off, but even then it's not worth all the wasted minutes building up these characters when there's a far more interesting story that's going to waste.

The story I'm referring to involves Wes Bentley's character James who is a washed up DJ that kind of fell from grace and is now living off royalty checks and he ends up being the person who teaches Cole (Efron) how to make electronic music effective. I really enjoyed Bentley in this role. In fact, the whole trifecta of Efron, Bentley, and Emily Ratajkowski is what made the movie watchable. Bentley being the mentor character who is fighting a lot of inner demons, Efron being the ambitious musician who is hungry for his big break, and Ratajkowski showing off her acting talent as the assistant/girlfriend to Bentley's character who ends up falling for Efron. Even though it sounds like a cliché love triangle, for some reason it works. There's tension between these characters - you care about the friendship between James and Cole, but you also recognize their faults and why Emily's character is torn in her position. They make for some pretty powerful scenes.

But again, this potential is muddled underneath a bunch of Hollywood crap. There's a throwaway plot about the gang working for a real estate agency, there's an attempt at a moral to being true to yourself in order to make it big, there is just a bunch of predictable nonsense that clutters this film which is a shame. Believe me, I was not expecting to have any nice things to say about We Are Your Friends, but there is definitely something here. The fact is that the goodness in the movie is a diamond in the rough, and sadly, this diamond isn't worth all the rough.

A good, fresh movie, obviously geared towards younger generations with a mostly unknown cast and more than competent direction. There are some great sequences in here, with great visuals and graphics, very visually appealing and even informative.

The storyline admittedly is very predictable, and the script is nothing out of this world, however it's fun and realistic, and you feel as though you really meet these characters. What it misses is focus, as the story has 2 different storylines, the one about Cole as a DJ being much stronger, and maybe it would have profited for cutting down on the scenes with friends. Although there are some gems there, it's been done many times before and the ending of that storyline is very predictable.

Now although this was never going to get any Oscars, it's still a good and entertaining tale of coming of age tale, and what it lacks in originality, it makes up for with a great soundtrack and pure heart coupled with a great performance by Efron.

P.S. The quotes from the movie might be laughable to some, but as a late stage millennial, I feel that quotes like "are we ever gonna be better than this?" and "This is the best part. The best part of anything really. It's the moment before it starts." are as real and contemporary as they get