FILM REVIEW: INTO THE NIGHT, ENDLESSLY SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT RAVE

Who would want to go to a party that actually lets you know where it is?"
vents a very frustrated Neil (Jeff Witzke) in "Groove," the shambling but
mostly knowing and funny comedy from the director Greg Harrison. If you're
nostalgic for the days of chasing around the city to find a gig and
arriving just in time to see a pair of 16-year-olds earnestly discussing
the merits of drum-and-bass versus jungle music, then "Groove" is the movie
for you. And if you're not so inclined, the film's seductive lack of
pretension will make a fan of you.

The only showy sequence in the entire picture is at the beginning, and its
portent is used as a joke: a garage door ominously cranks open and four
figures stand dramatically backlighted, with rain pouring behind them. This
Impossible Mission Force is Ernie (Steve Van Wormer) and his crew checking
out an abandoned warehouse as a rave site.

The movie takes place in San Francisco over the course of a single night,
with the word of the supposedly hush-hush party getting out via the
Internet and pagers. Although Mr. Harrison uses two elements so venerable
that they have calcified into institutions -- the rave scene and the
life-changing-night scenario, which was a dried chestnut even when
"American Graffiti" employed it -- the director manages to make "Groove"
about moments.

There's a girl staring contentedly at a spinning dryer while her Walkman
pumps it up, and Guy (Dmitri), Ernie's second in command, riding the BART
with a huge mirrored disco ball on his lap. Like "Graffiti," "Groove" does
away with plot and instead uses its wild-party setting to follow several
people who are attending the rave, or trying their best to find it.

This film doesn't assume the pose that raves are anything new or dangerous;
rather, the view is that they're an entrenched circuit with tribal
complications.

And that's where the comedy is. The surly Todd (Angelo Spizziri), who gets
many of the best lines while waiting for his Ecstasy high to kick in,
observes that if the girls weren't all sporting Tickle Me Elmo backpacks,
they'd be hot.

"When'd you go all Haight-Ashbury on me?" he barks at his psychotropic
connoisseur friend Cliff (Ari Gold, who directs sharp short films when he's
not acting). "You used to listen to Nitzer Ebb."

Moments before, Cliff -- a teaching assistant during the day -- was spotted
by a couple of his students. When it's clicking, "Groove" connects like an
Ecstasy-fueled screwball comedy: everyone's synapses get scrambled by their
desires and by the juiced beats per minute.

Unlike other films built around electronica song scores, which employ every
sleight of hand at the filmmakers' disposal, "Groove" settles assuredly
into a spartan look at the world of the rave. How sad; now that even Ronald
McDonald was featured in a commercial at an underground spot a few years
back, movies about raves are finally getting made.

There have probably been more rave movies in the last 12 months than there
were in the previous decade. It's too bad that none were produced in the
early 1990's, when the scene had some currency and Orbital's "Halcyon" --
which is part of the well-selected soundtrack -- could raise the roof.

At times here, there's a high corn quotient. Lola Glaudini is the jaded
Leyla, who is a little too old to still be hitting raves and is looking for
something worthy of commitment. David (Hamish Linklater) is at his first
rave and tries showing some game by telling Leyla he's from back East --
East Lansing.

One of the film's inside jokes is that he grew up a little more than an
hour from the home of techno music, Detroit, and was too nervous to make
that trip.

The film doesn't dwell on the many firsts that occur, like David's
inaugural rave experience and Ecstasy consumption. "Groove" often belongs
to Ernie, who is a techno altruist; he'd have to be, since he's charging
only two bucks a head for a till-dawn jam that includes food and bottled
water. He's down with the politics of dancing, so chilled that even a
police bust cannot stop him, evoking the Alan Freed of "American Hot Wax."
And when he finally gets a chance to hit the floor -- "You have control of
the bridge," he tells his pal Guy -- the spark in his eyes is as potent as
any of the mood-altering substances being passed around.

The film's real barometer is Maggie, played by the willowy Elizabeth Sun.
Whenever things are bumping, there she is, her twists shaking like it's all
good. And "Groove" is just that.

It would have been better only if the last shot were from an earlier scene:
Todd's high, as it finally kicks in and he toys with a globe like a stoned
kitten.

"Groove" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult
guardian). It includes party language and many, many drug references.

GROOVE

Written, directed and edited by Greg Harrison; director of photography,
Matthew Irving; music supervisor, Wade Randolph Hampton, with music by John
Digweed, Mixmaster Morris of Irresistible Force, Jonah Sharp of Spacetime
Continuum, the Hardkiss Brothers and Octave One, among many others;
produced by Danielle Renfrew; released by Sony Pictures Classics. Running
time: 86 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Lola Glaudini (Leyla), Hamish Linklater (David), Denny Kirkwood
(Colin), Mackenzie Firgens (Harmony), Vince Riverside (Anthony), Rachel
True (Beth), Steve Van Wormer (Ernie), Nick Offerman (Sergeant) Elizabeth
Sun (Maggie), Angelo Spizziri (Todd), Jeff Witzke (Neil), Dmitri (Guy) and
Ari Gold (Cliff).