Film & TV

British Film Festival Review: Kill Your Friends

A dark comedy/thriller of murder, drugs, sex, extortion and barrow-loads of profane language when a music industry worker will stop at nothing to advance.

Kill Your Friends is a British dark-comedy/crime-thriller that pulls out all the stops: murder, drugs, sex, extortion and barrow-loads of profane language. It is fiercely energetic and doesn’t seem to slow-down at any point. Although seemingly over-the-top and, at times, utterly ridiculous, it still works and is an incredibly entertaining film.

Set in 1997 London where the local music industry is booming, we meet Steven Stelfox (Nicholas Hoult); a head-strong, money-hungry, coke-snorting A&R employee with larger than life aspirations. He is living the life, spending his time taking drugs, hanging in Cannes with celebrities and sleeping with many different beautiful women.

When his hopeless, coke-addicted co-worker “friend” Waters is promoted to head of A&R over Stelfox, things take a nasty turn and it’s all downhill from there. While Stelfox struggles to secure his next hit record, he turns to blackmailing police investigators, framing his boss with child-pornography and even murdering his friends to continue his climb up the business ladder.

The film has been adapted by its writer John Niven from his cult novel of the same name which was inspired by his 10 years working in the British music industry. He provides an insider’s view of the self-indulgent, self-absorbed, money-driven, moral vacuum of the 90s British music industry.

Director Owen Harris (Misfits) does not hold back with the shocking one-liners and disgustingly slimy and abhorrent characters that fill Stelfox’s world. This is especially ripe among his clients who range from idiotic, sex-crazed German pop artists to girl-groups of cat-fighting, potty-mouthed chavs.

Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road) brilliantly portrays the evil and cunning Stelfox, allowing the audience insight into his sociopathic tendencies, which are strongly reminiscent of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. This sort of narcissistic, evil, egomaniac is a character we don’t often see Hoult taking on, but he does a great job.

Edward Hogg (Jupiter Ascending) is brilliantly weird as DC Woodham, the officer on Stelfox’s trail. Whenever on screen, Hogg portrays Woodham as a bizarre and dissatisfied man, whose creepy smile leaves the audience with a feeling of unease.

Georgia King (Wild Child) is brilliant as the beautiful, cunning and manipulative Rebecca, Stelfox’s intelligent assistant who believes that her knowledge of the music industry outweighs her comparatively lowly position – and she’s right.

James Corden (Into the Woods), despite only appearing in the film briefly, provides many moments of hilarity as Waters, a grubby, useless, coke-addicted employee of A&R, and business rival of Stelfox. He is disgustingly superb!

Kill Your Friends is an intense ride that will keep you appalled right down to the last second, and entertained the whole way through.

Reviewed by Georgina Smerd
Twitter: @Georgie_xox

Rating out of 10:  6.5

Kill Your Friends will screen again on 10 and 12 November 2015 for the BBC First British Film Festival, which runs 28 October – 18 November 2015 exclusively at the Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas.

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