''Kill Your Friends'' is a 2015 British satirical

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discu ...

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by

Owen Harris Owen Harris (1837 – January 1905) was a Liberal politician and municipal leader in Aberdare, South Wales. Early life Harris was born in Llanddeusant, Carmarthenshire, but as a young man migrated to Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley and later ...

and written by John Niven based on his 2008 novel of the same name. The film stars

Nicholas Hoult Nicholas Caradoc Hoult (born 7 December 1989) is an English actor. His body of work includes supporting work in big-budget mainstream productions and starring roles in independent projects in both the American and the British film industries ...

Craig Roberts Craig Haydn Roberts (born 21 January 1991) is a Welsh actor and director. He is best known for lead roles as Oliver Tate in the coming-of-age comedy-drama film ''Submarine'' (2010) and David Meyers in the series ''Red Oaks'' (2014–2017), and f ...

, Tom Riley, and

Georgia King Georgia May King (born 18 November 1986) is a Scottish actress. Early life Born in Edinburgh, King is the daughter of actor Jonathan Hyde and opera singer Isobel Buchanan. Career Although King grew up dreaming of being a director, she got her ...

. It was selected to be shown in the city to City section of the

2015 Toronto Film Festival The 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 10 to 20 September 2015. On 28 July 2015 the first wave of films to be screened at the Festival was announced. Jean-Marc Vallée's ''Demolition'' starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naom ...

. The film was released by

StudioCanal StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film production and distribution company that owns ...

on 6 November 2015.

Plot

London, 1997; the British music industry is on a winning streak.

Britpop Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes of the US-led grunge music and to the ...

bands Blur, Oasis, Supergrass, and

The Verve The Verve were an English rock band formed in Wigan in 1990 by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bass guitarist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury. Guitarist and keyboard player Simon Tong later became a member in ...

rule the airwaves and

Cool Britannia Cool Britannia was a name for the period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom throughout the mid and second half of the 1990s, inspired by Swinging London from 1960s pop culture. This loosely coincided with John Major's conserva ...

is in full swing. Psychopathic twenty-seven-year-old

A&R man Artists and repertoire (colloquially abbreviated to A&R) is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists (singers, instrumentalist ...

Steven Stelfox (

) is slashing and burning his way through the music business, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public. Fuelled by greed, ambition and inhuman quantities of drugs, Stelfox lives the dream, as he searches for his next hit record. But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox takes the concept of “killer tunes” to a murderous new level in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.

Cast

Production

On 12 February 2014,

joined the cast of the film to play lead role as (A&R) agent Steven Stelfox. On 3 March 2014,

Jim Piddock Jim Piddock (born April 8, 1956) is an English actor, producer and writer who began his career on the stage in the United Kingdom before emigrating to the United States in 1981. Personal life Piddock was born on April 8, 1956, in Rochester, Ke ...

joined the film's cast to play Derek Sommers, the managing director of the record label.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

commenced in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 10 March 2014 and wrapped five weeks later. The film was shot at Pinewood Studios,

and Greater London.

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 23% based on reviews from 60 critics, with an average rating of 4.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Kill Your Friends'' takes futile stabs at black comedy, all strangled by a glut of tonal jumbles, bad casting, and unremittingly unlikable characters." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

it has a score of 45% based on reviews from 19 critics "indicating mixed or average reviews". Andy Webster of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' called it "A richly satisfying poison-pen letter to the music industry." Stephen Dalton of

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

wrote: "Kill Your Friends remixes a brutally funny novel into an entertaining if somewhat familiar big-screen tale of amoral, chemically-fuelled decadence." Andrew Barker of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

''wrote: "The film has its razor-sharp grace notes and a seductive stylishness, neither of which can override its relentlessly adolescent worldview."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kill Your Friends 2015 films 2015 black comedy films 2015 crime thriller films 2010s comedy thriller films 2010s crime comedy films 2010s satirical films British black comedy films British comedy thriller films British crime comedy films British crime thriller films British satirical films Films about music and musicians Films based on British novels Films scored by Junkie XL Films set in 1997 Films set in London Films shot at Pinewood Studios Films shot in Hampshire Films shot in London Films directed by Owen Harris (director) 2010s English-language films 2010s British films