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Review by Susan Granger
1½ stars out of 4
A favorite of the Sundance Film Festival, first-time
writer/director Greg Harrison's "Groove" explores San Francisco's
underground rave scene. As I understand it, the difference between a
dance club and a rave is that raves are parties that spring up almost
spontaneously in different locations. Someone puts out the word on the
Internet, via e-mail, and it spreads. Others get a voice mail message
and pass it along. Participants gather, illegally, at the designated
place at the appointed time, pay an entrance fee, and the celebrated
DJs take turns, working in shifts to provide the music. This film
supposedly chronicles in pseudo-documentary tone one night at a
rave. It begins on Friday with an e-mail, announcing tomorrow's
event. By Saturday night, a crowd of 200 has assembled at an abandoned
Bay Area warehouse, many of whom are, want to be and/or will be high
on the drug Ecstasy. There's the naive, aspiring writer David (Hamish
Linklater) from the Midwest who meets Leyla (Lola Glaudini), a worldly
New Yorker who advises him to take Ecstasy with lots of water to avoid
dehydration. And David's brother Colin (Denny Kirkwood) who surprises
his girlfriend (MacKenzie Firgens) on her birthday with something she
didn't expect. Real-life DJs with names like Digweed and Dimitri vary
the pace and mood by changing the tempo and tone of the music. Humor
is injected by the efforts of the promoter (Steve Van Wormer) to
divert the suspicions of a cop (Nick Offerman). The writing is
sketchy, relying on the art of improvisation which these unskilled
actors, and others, have yet to master. On the Granger Movie Gauge of
1 to 10, "Groove" is a throbbing, feeble 4. I suspect there's less
than meets the eye in this manic, all-night, psychedelic celebration.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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out of 4
