Yes it is, but what the heck is it doing as the driving theme of Owen Harris' wannabe "American Psycho" flick, "Kill Your Friends"?
Not since American Psycho have business practices been as literally "cutthroat" as they are in Kill Your Friends, a dark-comic thriller likewise adapted from a novel.
We already have one American Psycho , and sadly for this adaptation of John Niven's book there was no need for a matching British Psycho, even one based in a different industry and played by a hot young thing .
Playing a well-spoken white collar exec willing to kill to get ahead in his career, there’s more than a bit of “American Psycho” in Hoult’s performance, never moreso than when he bludgeons a co-worker to death while lecturing him on the artistic merits of Paul Weller.
Hoult needs the gonzo charisma of Ewan McGregor in “Trainspotting” or Christian Bale in “American Psycho” to pull this off, and he doesn’t.
But it’s easy to imagine the two characters being devious rivals in “American Psycho”/”Kill Your Friends” fan fiction.