'Spree' Review

 
NRRuntime: 1 Hour and 33 MinutesProduction Companies: Endeavor ContentDistributor: RLJE FilmsDirector: Eugene Kotlyarenko Writer: Eugene Kotlyarenko, Gene McHughCast: Joe Keery, Sasheer Zamata, David Arquette, Kyle Mooney, Mischa BartonRelease Date: N/A
Meet Kurt from @KurtsWorld96. He dreams of one day sitting atop a social media empire, but he’s not there yet. He currently drives for the rideshare company Spree, which is cool for him because he gets to hang with so many dope people all day long. Fortunately, Kurt has come up with the perfect way to go viral: #TheLesson. He’s decked out his car with cameras for a nonstop live stream full of killer entertainment. In the middle of all this madness, a stand-up comedian with her own viral agenda, Jessie Adams, crosses Kurt’s path and becomes our only hope to put a stop to his misguided carnage.
In today’s digital age, an evolution has sparked from social media users who create content on various apps, finding a platform for themselves and birthing the term “social media influencer.” Love it or hate it, influencers are a huge part of social media today. Hell, one of my good friends is one of the biggest names on Tik Tok today. You have your good vloggers like David Dobrik or Casey Neistat and then you got the absolute scum of the earth like *insert either Paul brother here* who are the most absolutely cringe people that somehow got famous. So, it was inevitable that a filmmaker would create an original satire thriller exploring the toxicity of the culture and the people who exhort themselves into madness just to be seen. Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Spree somewhat achieves that.First and foremost, Spree is Joe Keery’s one-man vehicle that showcases his range outside of being daddy Steve Harrington. This is his first leading role in a feature and he does a great job committing to being this oblivious murderous menace and he’s engrossing to watch throughout. Keery perfectly nails the nature of the bland White male who tries too hard to be a social media influencer with over the top charisma, excessive hand gestures, and asking for follows. Oddly enough, a lot of his interactions with people feel real because of how overly fake he is. Kurt’s dialogue is hella cringe and knowing that it’s intentional makes it even more effective. When Kurt transitions into being a murderer, Keery keeps committing and he becomes naturally frightening. I hate to bring up Joker, but he goes into a contemporary Joaquin Phoenix performance where his deviation into madness is inescapable. You can’t help but to watch and Keery’s performance has you at the edge of your seat. It’s even funnier knowing that he had to watch the Logan Paul Japanese forest video in preparation because you know that if Paul went unchecked after that, the actions Kurt does would’ve been his next stunt.     I admire how Eugene Kotlyarenko crafted the feature to be an immersive experience. In the movie, Kurt sets up several GoPro cameras in his car and almost every shot is done through one of his cameras. Other shots are shown from various video apps, like YouTube and Instagram. It makes you feel like a spectator in Kurt’s World (no pun intended) alongside being trapped in a smartphone. 
Spree is a thoroughly entertaining thriller, but goddamn does this have some major issues that prevented me from enjoying it more. In terms of movies with this obsessive social media culture commentary, Spree does for male White incels what Ingrid Goes West did for beauty fake-glam girls so… take that as you may. I kid you not… if the narrative of Joker was applied to our modern society and social media culture, even down to the lead being a psychotic toxic White dude who is fixated on being seen, you’d get this! This is a 21st-Century Joker. While the commentary on this is clear and its additional satirical elements are effective, it’s not completely thought out. The thrilling elements come from Kurt stalking a successful up-and-coming comedian named Jane Adams (Sasheer Zamata) that has her own following. Once Kurt encounters her, he tries to leech himself onto her platform and when she rightfully rebuffs him, he seeks to kill her. My heart was pulsating the entire time because this White dude was criminally targeting a successful Black woman just to grow his brand and I felt both uncomfortable and manipulated by that. It doesn’t help that Kotlyarenko tries to place successful influencers and the people who try to steal their success on the same playing field. But the successful content creator characters he builds here all have unique talents and are diverse, meaning they already have a demographic. Jane Adams is a Black comedian, there’s an Asian female DJ featured, and one of his close friends is a young Latino who knows how to hit the right market. Kurt appeals to absolutely no one and it gets incredibly annoying when he questions how some of these people get their followers. He harasses every person of color with their own unique field and talent to grow his own follower count. Like, no, some of these fuckers actually have talent and are getting maimed because this white dude wants to be seen. There are random additional elements that feel tacked on and unnecessary, like having Jane interact with a creepy unfunny White comedian played by Kyle Mooney. The longer and more uncomfortable that those interactions get, the more unnecessary they become, for that is something that women in the comedic community actually navigate through. Obviously, I can’t speak to the experience, but based on the dissertations from my female comic friends, this film hits the bullseye only to come and go.Spree boasts of being a dark thriller, satirizing elements from our reality, yet, not much of its story comes from reality. For a narrative that’s set in LA, I would expect police enforcement to be much quicker. Kurt’s viral stunt (#TheLesson) involves him getting away with multiple murders — murders of innocent people — onscreen and he goes way too far before getting caught. He runs into the police and faces no consequences at all. The damn thing turns into Grand Theft Auto and after the fourth kill, his star count is still on 1! By the time the police encounter Kurt for the third time, you don’t feel any sort of tension because by that point you know they’re not going to do anything no matter how guilty, let alone suspicious, Kurt looks. A friggin’ video game has more urgency regarding escaping the law than the thriller feature that is Spree.  Rating: 2.5/5 | 57%