Kill Pattison

I can almost buy the notion of Robert Pattison playing Steven Stelfox in an adaptation of John Niven’s KILL YOUR FRIENDS merely because he’s got probably the most interesting face in movies right now. The novel is about an overworked, under-talented music exec circa 1997 that sets about fucking up his closest colleagues while providing wry commentary on the state of the British music industry before the advent of Napster and proliferation of p2p illegal downloading which became the norm for widespread music acquisitions. The novel is a pretty fun book and has the ingredients for an incendiary satire on the music industry; an industry that almost seems as shitty as the movie industry. Now, I’m no authority on Mr. Pattison’s acting ability as I have avoided all literary properties aimed at tossers who haven’t yet mastered the art of reading quality grown-up books, which pretty much rules out any of the movie adaptations Pattison’s been part of.

Nevertheless, I am willing to take a punt on Pattison in this movie. The character of Steven Stelfox is a rampant racist and misogynistic prick, which means I’m surprised any actor relying on their likability for movie roles would dare tackle. I hope they don’t water-down the source material as means of not tarnishing Pattison’s image. Likewise, I hope they don’t make Pattison carry out a performance he’s not capable of executing and what we’re left with is a Fisher-Price adaptation of a book that needed to be translated to film by talent with balls.