In his first feature film, TV director Owen Harris attempts, American Psycho-style, to depict the (sometimes literally) cutthroat competition among young A&R execs in the London music business in the ‘90s. And for a while the dark humor of John Niven‘s novel comes through. But then it descends with a relentlessly adolescent sensitivity into repeated scenes of naughty nihilism, coke-assisted decadence, homophobia, misogyny and murder. The film thinks it’s being satirical when it’s merely being ugly. A charismatic Nicholas Hoult is convincing in the lead, but he needs to choose his projects more carefully.

Japanese title: Mad Drive. (103 min)