“The weekend has landed. All that exists now is clubs, drugs, pubs, and parties.”

Justin’s rating: And nary a cell phone to be seen, imagine that

Justin’s review: Being a complete nerd from the flatlands of Indiana, I can’t speak with any authority about the Welsh clubbing scene of the late ’90s. For some reason, they did not include that as part of my college core, and so if you were to say that Cardiff raves were often interrupted by radioactive velociraptors that ate anyone under five feet tall, who am I to disagree? I know nothing!

Well, now I know a little more, because I watched Human Traffic, and there was nary a dinosaur in sight. There was a lot of loud music, angst, and casual drugs, though. Writer and director Justin Kerrigan — who was in his mid-20s at the time — wanted to create a monument to the club experience that he knew first-hand. If only he had thought to couple a strong story onto it, then we’d have something worth seeing.

Human Traffic is often compared to ’90s indie darlings Clerks and Trainspotting, although I thought it had more in common with Groove and Go. It gives you an idea of where this is coming from: A bunch of Gen X slackers, disillusioned with life, try to fill the void with wild moments, barking mad conversations, and continual partying.

Over the course of a weekend, a group of five friends establish why they can’t stand their weekday lives and flee into the party scene for the weekend. Jip, Koop, Moff, Lulu, and Nina have awful jobs, problematic relationships, and/or simply don’t feel as though they fit in with “normal” society. So their solution is to pile all of their frustration and pent-up energy into a couple days of unpredictable party therapy.

We follow them as they “wind up” at a bar (and make fun of the Spice Girls and other music they hate), encounter a documentary crew at a club, head to a house party, and then go through the inevitable “come down.” It’s all about spiking the dopamine as long as possible while making a few good memories, a life decision or two, and a possible romantic connection.

They’re not perfect people — they’ve got likable and unlikable traits, usually related to their youth — but they do feel real and relatable. They’re hedonists, lost and adrift, looking for meaning but willing to settle for good vibes.

Human Traffic occasionally employs the now-familiar cartoon technique of cutting away to a quick fantasy scene (think Scrubs or Family Guy) to drive home the ridiculousness of a moment. The movie utilizes a lot of other unusual techniques, such as breaking the fourth wall (repeatedly), having characters literally coast in and out of scenes, quick zooms, inner thoughts narrated for us, and so on. The full effect is chaos and, again, uncontrollable energy.

There’s a raw earnest approach that marks this as part of the ’90s indie crowd. Enthusiastic yet not well-seasoned filmmaking creates that authentic feel that Hollywood couldn’t imitate with its polished scripts. That said, it’s a rolling headache where I only understood about two-thirds of what these crazy Welsh were saying and felt assaulted by the noise and squirrelly attitudes. In that, it’s kind of like a hyper toddler of a movie — cute for a while, then you wish it would calm down and perhaps take a nap. Hey look — there are even pacifiers at the clubs.

While I’m torn between grinning at the silly party-hardy attitudes and rolling my eyes at the childishness on display, I am fully in favor of Human Traffic’s incredible late-90s EDM soundtrack. After watching this, I put it right at the top of albums I want to procure at some point. It’s packed with classics and (one last time) crazy energy.

Intermission!

• Love these in-your-face character name title cards
• That Mr. Floppy t-shirt
• He’s a “vinyl pusher” — that’s going to make this movie more relevant with time, not less
• Robot dance party at the movie theater
• “Martin is a closet human.”
• The ecstasy lecture is quite informative
• “We surf the waves of social paranoia, don’t we?”
• The new national album is pretty awful, but we can sing along with it
• “Reaching for the lasers” is a cool phrase
• Tom Toms in the Summer of Love 1991, lots of pacifiers
• “There’s no rules to sex!”
• That epic Star Wars conversation
• The subtitles during the dinner scene are pretty amusing