No. 362 : We Are Your Friends (2015)

 

We Are Your Friends at the IMDb

Time for a bit of a rave now at the W Movie Blog as Zac Efron takes us on a whirlwind tour of a vapid DJ’s rise to stardom.

 

The film’s hero, Cole, is listed as 23 with the 28 year old Efron looking all of the five years older than he’s supposed to be. I guess it would look a bit sad if someone was nearly 30 and still struggling with ‘what will I do with my life’ type issues.

Cole is a DJ and looking for a big break. A chance encounter with a superstar DJ gives him some hope, but of course the famous DJ has a sexy girlfriend that Cole lusts over. Whilst trying to spin the wheels of steel, (he's actually more of a laptop man) Cole tries to arrange some DJing gigs with his friends and generally hangs around a lot. The gang do get a job at Jon Bernthal’s boiler shop property business, but our guys are better than that!

 

Are they though? They seem like a bunch of drug taking wasters! Cole gets offered a big gig but makes an arse of it by sleeping with the superstar DJ’s girlfriend and by calling him a has been. Later some more drug taking claims a victim and Cole re-evaluates his life choices – can he make the record that will seal his DJ credentials?

 

I must admit to quite enjoying this film despite it’s overly familiar premise and unlikeable cast of characters. For a start it’s always sunny and everyone is gorgeous, so there is that. The plot is so familiar you’ll think that you have seen this before, but given its box office, you likely haven’t. It does however ask little of the audience and it has a banging soundtrack, albeit one that relies of the euphoria burst style of music a little too often.

There were some decent touches such as Cole’s voice over animated description of how DJing works – and it’s not just sticking on a load of records people! There was also a fun sequence where Cole takes drugs, and the scene becomes slowly animated as he gets more and more mashed.

The subplot of the exploitative mortgage scheme didn’t go anywhere, and Jon Bernthal was largely wasted. It did teach the kids that capitalism is wrong however and they’d be better off in clubs and taking drugs.

 

Efron is good as Cole but he is a bit too old and I didn’t really buy his character who seemed like a sneaky and ungrateful wee shit. His epiphany at the end that his killer tune should be sounds from real life was a bit silly and I doubt many of the punters in the Glasgow Tunnel would have indulged his five-minute build up and the track which included sound bites from his pals.

All in all it was a vacuous and pointless exercise, but the kicking soundtrack and bikini clad ladies made it a passable experience – but only just!

Best Bit - Pool Party

W Score 13/23

No. 322 : White Boy Rick (2018)

 

White Boy Rick at the IMDb

 Time for some true life crime biography next in the shape of this depressing and skuzzy drama that depicts the short crime life of Rick Wershe, who spent 30 odd years in jail prior to his recent release.

I had never heard of the case, but seemingly our hero was the youngest ever paid informant of the FBI at age 14 and the longest serving non-violent prisoner in the US penal system. These things considered, I had little sympathy for our protagonist and as such did not have too much affection for his bio-pic. That said, it was a decent offering but not one to love; more of a morality tale to remind you to stick in at school and not get involved in the selling of guns and narcotics. Duh.

We open with the young Richie and his Dad, Matthew McConaughey, buying firearms at a gun show. No, not me at the gym, an actual event for the sale of firearms. The 14 year old Richie spots a fake Kalashnikov which enables is Dad to get a good deal from the dealer. They make even more profit when Richie sells on the guns to the local drug lords with the addition of silencers, that Mahogany fashions in his basement.

Mahogany dreams of owing a video store - it is 1984 after all - and doesn’t mind dealing with drug pedlars, despite his own daughter being addicted to crack, if it helps to achieve his goal. Richie’s ‘in’ with the drug barons catches the attention of the FBI and soon agent Jennifer Jason Leigh has Richie on the payroll. They convince Ritchie to buy and later sell drugs so that they can infiltrate the gang. This doesn’t go well for Richie who gets a bullet in his guts for his trouble.

With no other means of support and a new baby to provide for, Richie starts to produce his own crack. Inevitably he gets caught and his FBI handlers are as much use as a cock flavoured lolly pop when Richie goes down for life. How did it end up here and can he cut a deal to earn his freedom? Is he a victim of society or a death dealer who got his just desserts?

This was a decent period offering with a great cast, but the subject matter and viewpoint weren’t to my liking and to be honest, to my mind, Richie got what he deserved. He was well played by the slow talking, but likeable Richie Merritt, but I had no sympathy for the character or his choices. It was rote large that his options were limited but he was clearly a poor drug dealer and his motivations didn’t excuse his actions.

Matthew McConaughey was good in his now familiar role of the lowlife scumbag - see ‘Killer Joe’ and his series of ‘True Detective’, but he couldn’t rescue the narrative here. He was a gun dealer who bought into his son’s drug ambitions. I liked the line when he said he’d maintained a good family and Richie pointed out he had a drug addict daughter and a screwed up son. You could say this was just a slice of life in the 1980s but why was Richie deserving of a bio-pic? He was made out to be on a path with no exits, but to accept that would be just accepting his criminal choices.

The period was well realised and there was an excellent supporting cast including a never rougher Jennifer Jason Leigh and a frankly miscast Eddie Marsan as some sort of drug lord.

The film ended with captions suggesting that Richie had been harshly treated but the film failed to elicit any sympathy from this viewer. There was no suggestion that Richie didn’t know what he was getting into, and although he inhabited a world with few options that didn’t excuse him dealing in deadly drugs.

When you have no sympathy for the lead in a bio-pic it’s hard for it to succeed but overall this was a well realised and enjoyable film, albeit one with a skewed moral compass.

Best Bit : Bruce Dern makes Pancakes ‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.319 : White Girl (2016)

White Girl (2016) at the IMDb

A down and dirty slice of New York life now as we see what happens when you run about with drug dealers and party a bit too hard.

Morgan Saylor stars as Leah, a young student moving into an apartment in the seedy end of town with her slightly more prim roommate. Leah likes to party and is soon hanging around with the youths from her street corner in the hope of scoring some drugs off them. She makes a connection with Blue and soon answers her own question ’What sort of girl do you think I am’ by banging him on the apartment roof.

We know she’s a bit of a girl as she’s already been blowing her boss, Doug off ‘The Hanover’ films, for some lines of coke. She brings Blue to her office party and he realises that Leah’s middle class colleagues will pay $60 for the coke he is used to selling for $20. This suggests to him that this is a great market to exploit and he gets a load of cocaine on credit to service his new customers. Huge mistake. He is immediately busted, although Leah takes possession of the drugs.

She tries to get her man out of the clink but doesn’t have the money to pay for a lawyer. No worries, she can just become a drug dealer herself and get involved in a lot of seedy activities under the pretence of helping her banged up beau. The lawyer she engages does good work but is also a creepy rapist. Eventually he gets Blue out and the happy couple are reunited. Will they have a happy ending or are they destined to be forever apart?

This was a grim and nasty film that actually raised a few laughs with its levels of depravity. Leah was an absolutely toxic character and it was hard to care as she sniffed and blew her way through the film. There was a fun sequence where she gets the money to pay the lawyer and the dealer through dealing and a happy ending is offered - no chance - some tawdry action and a few spews later and she’s wondering what happened to her money and what’s that in my knickers?

The obvious theme here was a clash of cultures with the free spirited and middle class Leah getting down with the boys from the ghetto. She was obviously naive and despite the filmmaker trying to add in a love story and a few virtuous acts it was just horrible as Leah and her quickly corrupted room mate, went straight to the bottom.

I did like how all the men were despicable and only after one thing - to be fair Leah was offering it on a plate to most of them, apart from the lawyer who took what he wanted and had the cheek to present a big bill too.

The closing scenes in which Blue was released were through the fingers stuff, with the couple enjoying about two minutes of happiness before the inevitable miserable ending played out.

Morgan Saylor was excellent in the lead and must have saved the costume department a fortune as she rarely had a stitch on. The sleazy boss and lawyer were basically 'boo hiss' sleazebags and the street kids were leftover Fring employees from ‘Breaking Bad’.

The film will probably be heralded as a brave slice of life, but if it’s an accurate portrayal of college kids’ lives we’re all doomed. To be fair Leah’s summer of excitement was offset by her bland existence at the end and, you have to hope that she realises that she got off lightly in her flirtations with the dark side of life.

Best Bit : I’ve got a pound of coke and need $20,000 - Party!  ‘W’ Rating 18/23

No.213 : Weekender (2011)

Weekender at the IMDb

Bangin’ man - let’s have a look at this modern classic and see if it earns the whole one star that Netflix viewers have deemed it worthy of.

It’s the early 90’s and the kids are being hassled by the man. Their dreadful music can only be found on pirate radio and they have to dance in warehouses. Now I was about in the 90’s and I can clearly remember fully equipped discothèques being available and Bruno Brookes doing the Top 40 on Radio 1.

Anyway, our hero Matt thinks he can do better and with the help of his simpleton friend they track down the pirate DJ and set up their own rave in an abandoned warehouse. It is an unqualified success and Matt decides to quit when he’s ahead until he discovers all the takings are counterfeit cash. He then decides to do it again and again - can’t fault logic like that!

They start to feel the heat after those killjoys in parliament speak out against the illegal raves due to all the drugs and safety concerns - the fools! The ‘Dibble’ (the police) show up and are somehow sent away when told the rave is a private party albeit one with a voluntary entrance fee. ‘I'll be back’ says the copper before never being seen again.

With the police concerns dealt with the guys then hook up with a nice promoter from London who teams up with them for some ‘super raves’. Alas they also meet the baddies who want to take their cash and take over their raves - the swine - this is our lawbreaking activity!

As the pressure mounts schisms start to appear in the group over who had sex with who and whether it’s worth the bother any more. As the bad guys turn the screws the scene is set for some limp action in Amsterdam to see which unworthy scroat makes it out alive.

This is a really dreadful offering with nothing to recommend it apart from the ironic finger pointing at how really terrible it is. To start with you have no characters worthy of the name. They are a bunch of scuzzy drug dealers led by Donovan off ‘The Inbetweeners’ and you have no empathy for them at all. I think you are meant to see them as hero pioneers but they just come across as a bunch of dope head scofflaws.

The era is hardly evoked in the memory with an ‘Italia 90’ t-shirt the only nod towards a period setting. They also show up how insignificant the whole enterprise is when the spinning newspapers (a new innovation!) are clearly mock ups rather than the real headlines which, in truth, probably didn't exist anyway.

The short running time is padded with a few long scenes of punters dancing away and I suspect one would need a truckload of ecstasy to be drawn into these mood setting rave-ups.

The acting is uniformly awful with a lot of ‘Did you shag my bird’ exchanges cringe worthy to the extreme. The guy playing Matt seemed genuinely dense so if this was acting kudos to you sir!

Over the piece I think a morality tale was the ambition with perhaps a side of nostalgia and bravado thrown in for good measure. What was realised was a bunch of tits in shell suits jumping about and playing at being gangsters. Risible rubbish!

‘W’ Rating 5/23

Best Bit - I suppose the poolside scenes in Ibiza win by a couple of points.

No.160 : Weekend With The Babysitter (1970)

Weekend With the Babysitter at the IMDb

Here’s a bit of an oddity from 1970 that garnered a frankly woeful 1.4/10 at the IMDb. It’s a hard film to categorise - it’s a sort of soft porn, action thriller fantasy with a bit of education and stoner wisdom thrown in for good measure.

We open with scenes of a young girl on a moped inter cut with some action at the border. The customs are shown to be doing a bang up job and although that seems incongruous with the carefree girl all will become clear soon. Or not, depends if you can stay the course really.

Anyway our hot chick arrives at her destination and we find that she’s the titular babysitter - but there’s been a mix up! The wife is indeed going out but not with the husband who is staying in. As he waves the wife off he tells the girl to stay so he can pay her for her time. The dirty bastard.

The pair settle down on the sofa and the girl starts reading a script that the chap, who is a director, is due to film next week. The girl laughs at how crummy the script is (oh the irony!) and tells him that the kids don’t talk like that. To prove her point she takes him out to meet her skuzzy friends.

Meanwhile, we learn that the wife has a drug problem and is visiting her dealer. They want paid and all she can offer is a loan of her husband’s boat which could bypass the customs problems we witnessed earlier. They take her along on the smuggling trip and after doping her up make her indulge in some lesbian sex for no other reason, it would seem, other than to secure an ‘X’ certificate for this tame offering.

Back at the house the husband is flat on his back after the night on the tiles but the girl stays over to make him breakfast and take him to the speedway, like you do. After lots of unnecessary shots of screaming bikes and babysitter nudity he realises that his wife is missing and commandeers a friend’s plane to search for her. Once spotted he rallies his new biker chums to intercept the bad guys and save the wife. Will lives be lost and will our man take his junkie wife back over the nubile babysitter?

This is quite a funny film if you don’t take it too seriously. The two leads are awful with the silver haired director as convincing as a hat stand. We’ve no idea what the baby sitter’s motivation is in seducing the old timer but fair play to him seeing as this was before the time of Viagra. The sex scenes are pretty tame although I did like how one ended with a cut to an anchor splashing into the water!

The kids all get a say and one boy’s assertion that not all bikers were bad was proven when they intercept the bad guys and destroy their drugs rather than toking up themselves. The twangy early 70’s soundtrack is a bit of a distraction but if ever a film was of its time this is it.

It’s certainly not as bad as the low scoring suggests but by no means a classic either. For your money you do get a fair bit of nudity, some cringingly bad sex scenes and dialogue you wouldn’t hear in a porno - so a wise investment all round then!

Best Bit : Pilot calling the control tower and asking them to call a biker bar for help

‘W’ Rating 11/23