It's A Shit Business.

'Kill Your Friends' is an okay|(ish) British gangster movie....that doesn't have any gangsters in it. Man of the moment Nicholas Hoult plays an A&R man for a major record company at the height of Britpop. As you might expect it's a shark eat shark world of decadence, immorality, excess and drug-fueled paranoia. The only way to be the last man standing is to be the biggest bastard in the room, have the biggest hit and (the spoiler is in the title) literally kill your friends. It is a homegrown 'American Psycho' by way of 'Gangster No. 1' and is basically just people being nasty to each other for the running time with a pretty cool soundtrack. I quite liked it but then I'm quite susceptible to in-jokes about the music business (there's a great gag about much derided Camden chancers Menswear), self conscious Columbo moments and seeing the late 90s as period drama.

Nicholas Hoult doesn't quite find the dark charisma to create another Patrick Bateman character but he does look the part. I once knew an actual living, breathing A&R man and he looked and dressed exactly like this. To be fair he was actually a nice guy (at least to your face) but he did have a psycho girlfriend and was actually clueless about music so they at least got that right.

It's one of those films that I guess you would have to call dark comedy or satire but it's not about very much at all really. There's a visual punchline about the music business being literally cutthroat but you're not going to find anything beyond that level of illumination. It's a shit business, sex and  drugs are integral to functioning in that world, nobody knows anything, luck always wins out and you have to lie like other people breathe. Is it anything we don't already know? It does however speak the truth about meetings - that bit is true regardless of what profession you are in.

One of those films that is perfectly watchable, quite enjoyable at the time but doesn't stay with you the next day....which is why I haven't got that much to say about it.

Good soundtrack though.