Variety: Had Patrick Bateman been born a decade later on the other side of the Atlantic, would he still carry a torch for Huey Lewis and the News? Or would he find solace in the Chemical Brothers and Radiohead between marathon coke-fueled orgies and bouts of homicide? Owen Harris’ “Kill Your Friends,” which stars Nicholas Hoult as a psychopathic London A&R man in the late 1990s, at least provides an answer to that question. Starting as a knives-out music-business satire before careening off the deep end into the sort of scorched-earth, nuance-free nihilism that makes Chuck Palahniuk look like Whit Stillman, the film has its razor-sharp grace notes and a seductive stylishness, neither of which can override its relentlessly adolescent worldview. Commercial appeal will likely be niche, though any bitter aspiring musician whose demos keep going unplayed will surely find some validation here.
We Got This Covered
There’s a trashy, sexy thriller buried somewhere beneath a mountainous heap of the loathsome societal grief that is Kill Your Friends, yet it never finds daylight. A strong leading performance isn’t enough to shake the film’s unsubtle workplace deathmatch, where sins are almost never answered for, because more sins erase them (or so we’re told). There’s a message here, one about forcing your own success, but it comes with a bloody price that’s spitefully unfulfilling. Narcissism is one thing, but Steve Stelfox’s workplace purge brings moral abandon to new, unfavorable levels.
The Playlist:
The music industry ain't pretty. It's a notion that's explored in "Kill Your Friends," bringing an almost "American Psycho" vibe to the story of one young man trying to make his mark on the '90s "Cool Britannia" scene that yielded Oasis, Radiohead and Blur.
Based on the novel by John Niven and starring Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts, James Corden, Tom Riley, Joseph Mawle, Georgia King, Ed Skrein, Jim Piddock, Edward Hogg and directed by Owen Harris ("Secret Diary Of A Call Girl," "Black Mirror"), this film follows a young man willing to go to extreme lengths to stay one step ahead in his job as an A&R man at a London record label.
WC
ou have to hand it to Nicholas Hoult. When he first charmed his way onto screens as the insightful Marcus in About A Boy it would have been bold to suggest the actor had a hope of making it past acting puberty. Not through a lack of talent mind you, but the sheer fact that the odds were against him; he was a child actor in a Hugh Grant vehicle (a good one, but still). And yet a decade-and-a-half on he’s really, truly made it. Following a swaggering career-making turn in Skins he’s secured a recurring role as an original X-Man, delivered the most quotable line of 2015 (two if you dig “Witness me”) and even dated Miss Hollywood J-Law for a while.
