The script for "Rave" isn't just tired, it's comatose. It's obvious within the first five minutes of the film that the entire movie is going to be a piece of shit. The scripters use the ancient and boring device of intertwining the storyline with fake documentary style interviews to develop character exposition. This device is so ragged that it is threadbare. Not only is it obvious and boring, it's lazy. This is a cheap hack's way of developing a story and it's characters. It's obvious.

Of course, the characters here are stereotypes so old that we see their fate coming easily. No script could save them. The gangbanger Mexican who has a gun, the Asian boy rebelling against his father who wants him to help out in the family store, the dippy chick who wants "to be famous some day," the boy club kid who dresses like a glam rocker and considers this to be dressing like a woman, the party girl who likes to take drugs. And on and on.

Even with these horrid stereotypes (more like monotypes), and the travesty that is the script, occassionally an actor or two is able to rise above this contrived mess and stand out among his or her peers. Douglas Spain is particularly likable and effective as Daffy, a Hispanic youth with his head in the right place. And conversely, Aimme Graham as Mary proves that just because someone doesn't have their head on straight is no reason to consider them less valuable as a person. Graham and Spain generate the most interest in us here because they are able to easily overcome the limitations of the screenwriter's devices and contrivances and still create thought provoking, well rounded characters. "Rave," in the end, thanks mainly to the cast, does have some value.

The cinematics by director Ron Krauss are also occassionally worthy. Krauss first gets our interest by utilizing footage, especially in establishing or transitional shots, that have accidental refractive flashes, impurities of the lighting on the film. These are the takes that other director's would usually discard because they "remind" viewers that they are "watching a film." But Krauss uses these "outtakes" in order to flavor the film with that sort of acid-trip, drug induced, visual hallucination feel at times. It's cool at first, but eventually it becomes overdone, and trite as well. Krauss also mixes in some blurry video footage (which pops up for no apparent reason) to accentuate the feeling of "drugs" having an effect. But, in the end, the film is generally very flat visually. This is especially noticeable considering the fact that the suggested event of the title is supposedly a feast for the senses, in particular the ears and eyes. At least Krauss gets the music right.

Yes, of course, we are voyeurs to the titular rave where the body of the film is set. Just as "Saturday Night Fever" and "Thank God It's Friday" are surely no adequate, accurate example of what a disco was like in the 70's, "Rave" is also no honest nor realistic reflection of what a rave must be like at the turn of the century. This is the film's worst flaw. If I were a person who goes to raves, (a raver?) I would be highly pissed at this misrepresentation of the events. In this film, at the rave, a person is beat up, a person has an overdose, and (after the event), a person is the victim of a drive-by shooting. It isn't hard to figure out what happens to who and we see their fates coming like the proverbial trainwrecks that they are. This is no representation of real life, no interesting reflection of reality. Nope, it's more a byproduct of that wicked and lazy screenwriter's feeble mind. It's a shame, a real waste of time, talent and celluloid.

"Rave" is, in the final analysis, a real rip-off. It's a downer, a bum trip. I don't know what the kids today call that in their hiphop vernacular. Doesn't matter though. "Rave" is obviously made by 30 year olds, like myself, who do not have the faintest idea of what young people are all about. Nor, in all probability, have the filmmakers ever even been to a rave.

Note:

Also with Dante Basco and Nicholle Tom (of TV's "The Nanny").

Director Krauss also appears in cameo as a doctor.

Written by Kristine A. Tata, Krauss, and Mario Zavala. From a story by Tata.

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