KILL YOUR FRIENDS

The makers of this turgid Britflick were probably hoping to ride the current wave of 90s nostalgia, but the novelty wears off quickly. Adapted by John Niven from his own novel, Kill Your Friends is set during the Britpop years, when the pre-Napster record industry was hoovering up money and Colombian marching powder in equal measure.

Nicholas Hoult plays the preposterously named Steven Stelfox, a talentless A&R man whose only qualification is a prodigious capacity for cocaine and owning his own copy of “The Art of War.” But what Stelfox lacks in talent, he makes up for with blind ambition. Stelfox is the type of guy who thinks nothing of (literally) urinating on his colleagues to get ahead. It’s like a “how-to” guide for sociopaths, or an episode of The Apprentice (same thing, I suppose).

For all its edgy credentials and satirical aspirations, Kill Your Friends is ultimately quite boring. It has more in common with How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) than with American Psycho (2000). At this stage, to-camera monologues indicate the inability to tell a story, and should be consigned to the past along with Menswear’s second album. Drug-taking isn’t a spectator sport, and the endless scenes of debauchery become wearing. Kill Your Friends feels like being trapped at a stockbrokers Christmas party. Unpleasant.