Kill Your Friends

Dir: Owen Harris

2015

***

Adapted from John Niven's celebrated debut novel, Owen Harris's Kill Your Friends stays true to the source material. This is hardly surprising when Niven himself wrote the screenplay, although I was surprised he didn't steer it away from the glaringly similar structure of American Psycho. The novels are similar in many ways, the film version of American Psycho however is very different from the book but almost exactly the same as 2015's Kill Your Friends. The only difference between American Psycho and Kill Your Friends is the music. At least American Psycho looked like the time period it was set in (and featured the correct music), Kill Your Friends couldn't have looked less like 1997 if it had tried and is pretty music-light, considering it is set at a record label. I once worked at a record label for about five years, never in A&R but I knew the team. While some scenarios rang true and many big name bands weren't signed, it really wasn't as exciting or dangerous as Niven suggests. Of course this is exaggeration, I met quite a few people in the industry who would sooner eat their own children then give me the time of day but I'm pretty sure none of them would really kill anyone, physically that is, they would kill people (and their dreams) with words on a daily basis. I think what really worked with American Psycho was the fact that Patrick Bateman was a charming killer. It somehow made him more sinister. In Kill Your Friends, A&R man Steven Stelfox is just a bastard. Actually he's worse than that but I will refrain from using the colourful language the character deserves. Nicholas Hoult plays it well, he is utterly detestable, which makes it a funny thing to review, as I had little enjoyment in watching the character but he played him perfectly. I thought the overall plot was very clever and it is a successful satire that always plays close to the bone. I think it should have been much more of a period piece and I thought the production looked pretty cheap but I did enjoy the humour, the darkness and watching James Corden getting brutally murdered.