“Spree” is a title with a contrived double meaning. The movie is about someone who goes on a killing spree, but guess what? He’s also a driver for a rideshare service CALLED Spree (I suppose Uber and Lyft weren’t interested in a promotional deal). What a funny coincidence that the screenwriter made happen!
This is a dark satire about a young man named Kurt (Joe Keery) who desperately wants to be an internet “influencer” and acts like he already is one even though his livestreams usually top out at eight or nine viewers. All of that will change, he figures, when he installs cameras in his car and broadcasts what happens to his Spree passengers (hint: they will not be giving him five stars).
While the movie’s tone is satiric, it’s also shallow: Kurt doesn’t have enough substance to be chilling. It’s also funny, but not funny enough to stand on its own as a straightforward comedy. Still, it’s darkly entertaining, and Sasheer Zamata shines as a stand-up comedian whose audience Kurt wants to steal. I enjoyed the frenzied way director Eugene Kotlyarenko depicts as many as three people in the same scene all livestreaming from their individual phones, piggy-backing off one another’s audiences, especially insofar as it reminded me never to livestream anything.
B- (1 hr., 33 min.; )
