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Review: That Sh*tty Movie Starring Zac Efron and the Dude from 'American Beauty'

By Dustin Rowles | Film | August 28, 2015 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | August 28, 2015 |


In We Are Your Friends (real movie title), Zac Efron plays a beautiful blue-eyed dildo with gelled pubes by the name of Cole. He’s a townie from Los Angeles, but not the fancy section. He lives in the part of L.A. that Sublime sings about on their early albums. Cole and his townie friends like to bro-out, go to the clubs, get laid, black out, wake up and work odd jobs, including one in which they are Glengarry Glenn Ross motherfuckers for a shoddy firm that specializes in real-estate scams. Jon Bernthal plays Ben Affleck from Boiler Room.

But the thing about Cole and his townie friends is that they got dreams. Big dreams. Cole, for instance, wants to spin. He’s super into electronic music and understands the true mechanics of it — the way you want to sync the music to your audience’s heartbeats and then control their circulatory system. But he’s all cock and no balls. His music has no substance, because it’s all samples and computer-generated beats, like that poseur Moby.

Then Cole meets James (Wes Bentley), a burnt-out spinner who’s been looking at that plastic bag for so long now that he no longer sees the beauty in the world. He’s been living on the same beats for years now, going through the motions, drinking himself numb, and fucking any piece that gives him the time of day. But in Cole, he sees talent. He sees a younger version of himself, back before he understood that “sound has a soul.” The problem with Cole, however, is that he “hasn’t even been alive long enough to understand the word irreparable.”

James nevertheless takes him under his wing, but complications arise when Cole develops a crush on Bechdel’s Worst Nightmare, Sophia (Emily Ratajkowski), who plays a pair of sensuous lips and sideboob that looks great dancing to house music in slow motion. So much beauty! She’s James’ assistant and girlfriend, so you can probably guess where this is going.

At some point along the way, though, shit gets real real fast for Cole when tragedy strikes, and that’s when he gains the true perspective he needs to spin music that’s organic, that’s from the soul! No more of these shitty computer samples, brah! This is house music with the sounds of life. Fuck the computer-manufactured kick drum! Cole’s music has the sounds of the nail gun his buddy uses to lay roof! And the rhythm comes the sound of sneakers on pavement when your running through Long Beach thinking about that deep shit real hard, you know? And the melody comes from the zipper of his girlfriend’s hoodie when she’s nervous. That’s as real as you get, bro!

We Are Your Friends comes from director Max Joseph, and not to be a dick here, but his movie is exactly what you’d expect from a guy who looks like this:

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It’s like this faux-profound flick that the trust-fund kids who spend most of the week at Sundance skiing would probably think is the most mindblowing movie ever, because it’s a gritty coming-of-age story about a pretty white boy spinner who’s always rubbing his six-pack abs as if to ensure that his golden ticket hasn’t turned to flab. If you’re into Monster energy drinks, acid, and close-up shots of bikini ass, We Are Your Friends will unz unz unz your fucking world. If you pay your own rent or pump your own gas, you’ll probably spend most of the movie wanting to kick it in the teeth, so it will finally understand what the word “irreparable” means.