May I Kill U?

One of this year’s FrightFest surprise hits was this pitch black comedy thriller written and directed by Stuart Urban.

To put it upfront, May I Kill U? is not your average black comedy thriller, for it touches on very current themes such as the London riots and our ever increasing fascination – and dependency – with social media.

Cycle cop Barry Vartis (brilliantly played by Kevin Bishop) has got himself a licence to kill. Not officially mind you, but in his head. His head, ah yes. Goings-on inside his head are a little peculiar since he had an ‘accident’. Barry takes it on himself to eliminate the baddies of society and even gives them a choice: get arrested or die! But not before asking ‘May I kill u?’
The killings are both outrageous and funny (well, it IS a black comedy) from the word go. In one scene, a hooded teenage rioter gets beaten to death with the very state-of-the-art TV set that he stole, while in another scene our vigilante cycle cop dispatches of a wife beater (whose wife then tries to come on to Barry as a thank you, dressed in lingerie). Nothing and no one is safe from Barry’s crusade to make London a safer place, be it human-trafficking East Europeans or even a granny who turns out to be a kleptomaniac (she is fine with the idea of getting killed, but insists on leaving a large sum of her savings to her mercy-killer). Barry suspects oh so many hapless souls of foul play, may it be for the right or the wrong reasons. Ironically, the recent tasering of blind man Colin Farmer by Lancashire police almost is a case in point when it comes to self-righteous police men.

Barry records all of his deeds with a helmet-cam, and anonymously posts the videos on various social media sites to great success. While he becomes a social media ‘celebrity’, things don’t fare that well in his domestic life. Still living with his alcoholic mother Bernice (Frances Barber is a scream!) we learn of the constant quarrels and squabbles between mother and son. She thinks of him as a loser, he thinks of her as an irresponsible pain in the a**. The situation escalates when he introduces his new girlfriend Maya (Kasia Koleczek), one of the East European girls he rescued from a gang of traffickers.
Increasingly complex is his relation to sassy co-worker Val (Hayley-Marie Axe in a great debut performance), who at first holds him in high esteem, but eventually begins to smell a rat and furthermore concludes that Barry is just another male chauvinist pig working within the police force.
And then there’s Barry’s mate Seth (Jack Doolan), who eventually is forced to switch sides.

The movie’s pace feels a little uneven at times and some of the killings are bloodier than the others, but all in all this is a wickedly twisted black comedy with a ‘social conscience’ message attached to it.

(Please read my interview with Hayley-Marie Axe)