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.312 : Water (2019)

Water (2109) at the IMDb

You know your picture isn’t going to be of the best quality when the best credit you can find for any of the cast is something called ‘Atomic Shark’ which has a shark with a nuke on its back for the poster. In fact most of the cast don’t even have their photo on IMDb which is probably explained by the fact that none of them appear to be actors.

We open with a man getting frisky on a lounger by the pool with his lady friend at night. She asks him about leaving his wife and fortunately she can ask her herself as she’s just come home. The wife has rushed home with news of her pregnancy but when she sees the sexy goings on she grabs a knife and goes on the rampage. There is a quick cut so we don’t know what happens but the wife ends up stabbed in the pool.

The girlfriend is quite happy with this turn of events and the pair chop up the body with an axe and burn the pieces. The man, Frank, decides he might as well go for the double and kills the girlfriend too. He calls in the cops and has enough influence as a top doctor to ally any suspicions. A year passes and Frank gets a call fro the insurance company - how would he like the wife’s $11m insurance payout? He celebrates with his new girlfriend in the pool but just as she’s getting down to earning her cut both she and Frank disappear into the water.

All the while, simpleton handyman Daryl is wandering about seeing things and talking to himself. He too gets a tickle in the pool but gets out after monetarily blacking out. Time passes and a real estate agent and his girlfriend take a midnight dip they soon regret before another family move in. This chap is an English movie producer and they move in after their adopted daughter is saved from drowning in the pool by a realtor. At least that’s what they think - we get an underwater shot of a mermaid like creature rescuing the girl.

The family sense something not right about the house - mostly water based things like the shower going cold and taps turning on. Maybe it’s haunted by the ghost of Super Mario? They try an exorcism but that’s a waste of time and we have to wonder who will get dragged into the pool next and what is behind this horror? Apart from the script, acting etc.

This was an awful film with the worst acting you’ll have ever seen, as long you missed ‘Albion Market’. The cast all crash each others lines and a lot of the script looks improvised, as characters trail off without finishing their…

There is plenty of sex to spice things up with the ladies of the cast looking like a job lot form some backstreet boob implant emporium. One lady takes her top off and her boob remains in the same flattened shape as her basque top. Breath out luv and it will pop straight back out.

I’m not sure of the pool’s motivation - it was a sort of moral guardian allowing only those not getting up to hanky panky to escape its watery tendrils. No one really notices the pool based issues, especially the police who keep telling people not to leave town and that’s it. The characters tend to avoid the pool later on but this is solved by the pool’s mystical ‘drag ‘em in feature’.

There was no effort at an explanation - maybe it used to be an ancient Indian burial pool? To be fair I did have a few laughs and the cast didn’t seem to be taking it that seriously so there’s no reason for the viewer to either. The film probably just hits the required level to be deemed ‘so rubbish it’s good'. But not that good.

Best Bit : The overacting albino priest doing an exorcism ‘W’ Rating 9/23