Kill Your Friends (film)

Kill Your Friends is a 2015 British satirical black comedy crime-thriller film directed by Owen Harris and written by John Niven based on his 2008 novel of the same name. The film stars Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts, Tom Riley, and Georgia King.^[3] It was selected to be shown in the city to City section of the 2015 Toronto Film Festival.^[4] The film was released by StudioCanal on 6 November 2015.

Kill Your Friends
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Owen Harris
Screenplay by	John Niven
Based on	Kill Your Friends by John Niven
Produced by	Len Blavatnik Gregor Cameron Will Clarke
Starring	Nicholas Hoult James Corden Georgia King Craig Roberts Jim Piddock Joseph Mawle Ed Skrein Tom Riley Ed Hogg Rosanna Arquette Moritz Bleibtreu
Cinematography	Gustav Danielsson
Edited by	Bill Smedley
Music by	Junkie XL Bastille
Production companies	Altitude Film Entertainment AI Film Pinewood Pictures Unigram
Distributed by	StudioCanal
Release dates	5 August 2015 (2015-08-05) (Fantasy Filmfest) 6 November 2015 (2015-11-06)
Running time	103 minutes[1]
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	$506,721[2]

Plot

London, 1997; the British music industry is on a winning streak. Britpop bands Blur, Oasis, Supergrass, and The Verve rule the airwaves and Cool Britannia is in full swing. Psychopathic twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Steven Stelfox (Nicholas Hoult) 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

• Nicholas Hoult as Steven Stelfox
• James Corden as Roger Waters
• Georgia King as Rebecca
• Craig Roberts as Darren
• Jim Piddock as Derek Sommers
• Joseph Mawle as James Trellick
• Ed Skrein as Danny Rent
• Tom Riley as Tony Parker-Hall
• Ed Hogg as DC Woodham
• Rosanna Arquette as Barbara
• Moritz Bleibtreu as Rudi
• Damien Molony as Ross
• Dustin Demri-Burns as David Schneider
• Al Weaver as Bill
• Bronson Webb as Rob Hastings
• Ella Smith as Nikki
• David Avery as Fisher

Production

On 12 February 2014, Nicholas Hoult joined the cast of the film to play lead role as (A&R) agent Steven Stelfox.^[5] On 3 March 2014, Jim Piddock joined the film's cast to play Derek Sommers, the managing director of the record label.^[6] The film was scored by Junkie XL.^[7]

Filming

Principal photography commenced in London on 10 March 2014 and wrapped five weeks later.^[3] The film was shot at Pinewood Studios, London and Greater London.

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, 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."^[8] On Metacritic it has a score of 45% based on reviews from 19 critics "indicating mixed or average reviews".^[9]

Andy Webster of The New York Times called it "A richly satisfying poison-pen letter to the music industry."^[10] Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Kill Your Friends remixes a brutally funny novel into an entertaining if somewhat familiar big-screen tale of amoral, chemically-fuelled decadence."^[11]

Andrew Barker of Variety wrote: "The film has its razor-sharp grace notes and a seductive stylishness, neither of which can override its relentlessly adolescent worldview."^[12]