A group of young people work at the independent Empire Records. While closing up, Lucas (Rory Cochrane) discovers a contract in manager Joe Reaves (Anthony LaPaglia)'s office to sell out the store to big corporate Music Town. Lucas tries his luck with the store's cash to save the place and promptly loses $9k in Atlantic City. The next morning, A.J. (Johnny Whitworth) and Mark (Ethan Embry) are the first at the store. Corey Mason (Liv Tyler) and flirty friend Gina (Renée Zellweger) have a crush on 80's pop star Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield) who is coming to the store. His time is mostly pass and even his assistant Jane (Debi Mazar) doesn't like his music. Angry Deb (Robin Tunney) shaves her head. A.J. vows to reveal his love for Corey. They catch a young shoplifter who claims to be Warren Beatty. It's going to be a crazy day.

This is a crazy wild mess of young people fun. The music is loud and mostly good. The story is full of teen angst. The best is the cast of great young up and comers. Tyler and Zellweger are in short skirts. Tunney actually shaves her hair. It's lots of teen melodramatic fun. The characters are appealing. It's certainly possible to be get-off-my-lawn on this movie but not me. Even a bad sleazy Maxwell Caulfield can't get me out of this movie.

This film would have been a whole lot better if every character in it wasn't a caricature. Store clerk Mark (Ethan Embry) and shoplifter Warren (Brendan Sexton III) were the worst. There might be teens that clueless and arrogant respectively, but in this film, they were just plain annoying. And the record shop manager Joe Reaves (Anthony LaPaglia) spent an awful lot of time deliberating over what he'd do about the missing nine grand. Seemed pretty simple to me, but in keeping with the one big happy family concept, he presided over the madness going on with the serenity of a Buddhist monk. Maybe I'm just a little too far removed from the target audience for this picture but it did nothing for me. The story was fairly predictable about how the missing money would be replaced, while the teen angst aspect of all the employees wound up pretty much resolved by the time the closing credits rolled. Not very comparable to real life, but I guess the picture had it's time and place, which is to say, it's a good thing the Nineties are over.

An employee steals the money from a record store's vault, with the hopes of gambling with it in Atlantic City and making it big. He fails, and the next day the store must face the reality: without the money, they will be turned into one of many chain stores where the more laid back approach to selling music just doesn't slide with those in charge. Also, this day features a visit from washed-up pop star Rex Manning.

Directed by the writer and director of "Pump Up The Volume", this film simply is not as good as "Pump Up The Volume". And, sadly, it's also not the best movie about people hanging out in a record store -- "High Fidelity" is a better contender in that category. What this film does excel at is showing a store with way too many employees who do nothing (how can they possibly afford to pay these slackers) and really encapsulating what it was like to live circa 1995 (probably as much or even more so than "Reality Bites").

That is really the only selling point for this film for me. Reminding me of 1995, when music like the Gin Blossoms was cool and people dressed like they were trying to escape the 1980s but didn't know how (and ended up turning to flannel for help). Sure, we have Robin Tunney ("The Craft") and a young Liv Tyler... even Renee Zellweger. All fine actresses, but nothing worth seeing the film for if that's all you want to see.

There's nothing new about the idea of trying to get a store saved from going under (or a school, or a radio station -- see "UHF"). What makes this movie different is that the characters are just, well, weird. They sit around, don't do a lot of work, wander off for no reason, and nobody cares. The store could run more effectively with fewer employees, and the film would probably be tighter if one character was dropped (maybe Ethan Embry).

Warren was by far the most entertaining part of the film for me. His hoodlum antics just made me very amused, and without him this would have been a highly dull film. Do I care about a girl's depression (which is never really explored or resolved) or another girl's acceptance to Harvard (which is barely covered) or a pill addiction (which is dealt with so minorly)? No. I am never given a reason to give half a fig. Each character is so shallow that their shallowness is almost deep in its presentation.

If you need a flashback to 1995, this is a film for you. The music obviously plays a large role in this movie, and the styles will be familiar. But as far as being an outstanding film or a cultural achievement or even a cult classic, I guess I just don't see it. All the hype this film had or has circling around it don't amount to much. But, hype is like that -- almost never delivering on its promises.