A thankless experience that doesn't have much to say beyond the way it chooses to communicate its message.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 18, 2022

It sounds a bit bleak, but it's not, thanks to pacey storytelling from first-time director Owen Harris and a zippy script from John Niven.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2021

Kill Your Friends has its moments, but in the end what's the point? It's all Blur and Oasis signifying nothing.

| Jan 7, 2021

As Stelfox pulls out of situation after situation through increasingly deplorable behavior, what feels giddily transgressive to begin with becomes simply numbing.

| Jul 24, 2019

Niven's novel is acerbic, but onscreen it plays as toothless, boring, predictable.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 17, 2019

A rancid cocktail of misogyny, homophobia, and much more besides, that never convinces as scathing satire as much as back-slapping celebration.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 8, 2019

A would-be blacker-than-black comedy that is so misconceived and so wretchedly executed that I have no trouble in putting it down as one of the most unpleasant afternoons I've ever spent in the cinema.

| Original Score: 0/5 | Oct 26, 2017

Hoult is a fine actor for sure but he's just too damn good-looking and smooth as the dark-hearted record company man. Hoult's craven A&R man has the killer instinct but his insecurities never seem entirely convincing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 19, 2016

Saturates itself in nihilistic excess while presenting an uncompromisingly grim portrait of the recording industry. What is has to say, however, eventually grows stale as its narrative repetitively hits the same beats again and again.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 9, 2016

As adapted by screenwriter John Niven from his own novel, Kill Your Friends has a decidedly been-there, killed-that feel to it.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 6, 2016

Nicholas Hoult shines in this blackest of black comedies.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 15, 2016

The cynical film might be more annoying than eyeopening but the soundtrack kicks, as it features groups like Blur, Oasis and Radiohead.

| Original Score: C+ | Apr 9, 2016

Sometimes bad behavior can be entertaining, but in this cynical story of the music industry, it's simply depressing. There's no vicarious thrill, no exhilaration, only uninspired, unpunished meanness.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 7, 2016

... leaves little room for emotional investment in such aggressively objectionable characters.

| Apr 1, 2016

Nobody's here to care about, so all we want is to get out.

| Apr 1, 2016

Mistakenly thinks a lot of profanity, ugliness and bloodshed [...] are, in and of themselves, enough to sustain a satire about showbiz ruthlessness.

| Apr 1, 2016

Everyone is horrible all the time-so when they do horrible things to each other, the result is a chuckle rather than a vicious bite. The music business is cutthroat, we get it.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 1, 2016

"Kill Your Friends" goes to some ugly places, but it keeps a sturdy sense of rhythm.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 1, 2016

Watching "Kill Your Friends" unfold is not dissimilar to being at a party where someone's clever one-liner lulls you into a conversation that reveals a bitterly immature, dismissively one-note lout, after which you're trapped.

| Apr 1, 2016

Anchoring the pungent 1990s ambience is Mr. Hoult, easily oozing cool charisma.

| Mar 31, 2016