Released on the heels of Human Traffic, another briskly paced and briskly disposable paean to the rave scene, first-time writer-director Greg Harrison's Groove opens to the crackling sounds of a modem and a flurry of e-mails, a cue (to studio executives?) that it's plugged directly into the zeitgeist. Made for right now, here and gone faster than the word Go, the film captures an instant in youth trends that's likely to evaporate from the cultural radar as quickly as the Ecstasy high that fuels it. Like the new Human Traffic—which, incidentally, is the more inspired and pleasurable of the two—Groove is a loosely episodic night in the life of self-styled hipsters looking for a good time. Most of the action takes place in an abandoned warehouse in San Francisco, where an underground network of ravers has secretly gathered for the evening. Between energetic cutaways to the dance floor, a few poorly sketched subplots develop. Included among them are the romantic coupling of bookish computer-magazine writer Hamish Linklater and a more experienced New York transplant (NYPD Blue's Lola Glaudini), a tenuous birthday surprise given by Linklater's brother (Denny Kirkwood) to his girlfriend (Mackenzie Firgens) of five months, and a gay couple (Jeff Witzke and Bradley K. Ross) who get lost on the way to the party. After an invigorating start, Groove settles into the monotonous rhythm of half-hearted comic, dramatic, and/or romantic episodes punctuated by repeated shots of kids pogoing to house music. Harrison makes a strong argument for Ecstasy as the official recreational drug of the communication age: fast, efficient, and capable of wiring an instant connection among those who use it. But with nothing more in mind than the moment, his debut already seems dated.