Good Performances, Great soundtrack, Thin Plot, Good Movie

Rating: 6/10 (2 July 2014)

Empire Records is arguably the closest the 90s came to channeling one of those memorable 80s teen ensembles like the Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles or Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Occurring almost entirely within the confines of an independent music store and utilizing some then fairly unknown, but quality, young actors like Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, Ethan Embry, Rory Cochrane, Johnny Whitworth, and Robin Tunney with an excellent older cast Maxwell Caulfield, Anthony Lapaglia and Debi Lazar.
Lapaglia stars as Joe Reaves, the manager of Empire Records, an independent music store facing hard times and on the verge of selling out to the Music Town franchise thanks to the evil owner Mitchell Beck (Ben Bode). For many of Reaves teenage staff, Empire Records is their last chance saloon. On the day after Lucas (Cochrane) in a last ditch attempt to save the store, steals all of the money from the store safe and loses it at a casino, Reaves tells his employees about the impending sale. With a past his prime 80s rock star Rex Manning (Caulfield, brilliant) visiting the shop to sign autographs the confused staff work through their various issues and try to come to terms with the coming change.
The film has an excellent soundtrack and some great comedy scenes. LaPaglia is excellent and he is ably supported by the minor players. Cochrane's Lucas and Tunney's Debra being the standouts. Though Whitmore and Tyler do their best to drag proceedings down with a fairly unremarkable love story. This was a much loved film among teen audiences when it came out in 1995, and many years on, while dated, still stands up. It goes a little more deeply into some significant issues faced by the characters, without getting bogged down by them, though it does offer some too easy solutions.
In the end if you take good performances, a great soundtrack, and an basic plot, you get a good movie.