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.
Collider
A film’s protagonist doesn’t necessarily need to be likable for a movie to succeed. But in order for the film to be compelling the audience needs a reason to care about what’s happening to the character, which is the key missing in Kill Your Friends, a pitch black comedy based on the book of the same name by author John Niven. Directed by Owen Harris—who is best known for helming the tear-inducing Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back”—the story takes place in the British music industry in 1997, focusing on a young A&R man named Steven Stelfox. Though Nicholas Hoult is certainly up the challenge of tackling a character as despicably ambitious as Stelfox, the script fails to make him interesting, which becomes a bigger and bigger problem as the film spirals into very dark territory.
