Kill Your Friends

If cynicism is barbed and satire lethal to the touch where does Owen Harris's film stand? In a pool of blood.

Writer John Niven uses a narrative voice to excavate bile from the sick character of Stelfox (Nicholas Hoult), an A&R man for an indy record label in the mid Nineties.

There are references, not mentioned by name but implicated in criminal levels of excess, to Sodom and Gomorrah. This world of Top Twenty wannabees and company execs who exploit them is an amoral mess of shattered dreams and double barrelled expletives.

Evil is a natural. Why bother giving it air space? Drugs and alcohol and women are used as currency and since nice guys can't breathe in this atmosphere there are only differing degrees of repellent.

Stelfox's mantra is "Drive your enemies before you and listen to the lamentations of their women".

He hates music, his job, life and anyone who stands in his way. He likes power, himself (some of the time) and wiping out the opposition. Being a liar and a cheat he can't be arsed justifying his actions.

Boundaries? Eh? When you are at the top of the greasy you don't look down. You are untouchable. The god of pain.

Murder is more satisfying than sex. It avoids the emotional hook and can be executed without histrionics. Cretins and weaklings weep for the departed while A&R men steal the next big thing from someone else's playlist. Artists, singers, bands lubricate the machine. Stelfox doesn't listen to them; he uses them.

What about the film? Ugly, nauseating and without a single redeeming feature?

Worse.