Stranger Things’ Joe Keery tries to give us a Travis Bickle for the
Instagram age, but the script is hopelessly superficial
What if instead of roaming the streets of
New York in his yellow taxicab, Travis Bickle cruised LA behind the wheel of an
Uber listening to bad techno? That’s more or less the gist of this silly and slightly tedious serial-killer black
comedy, a satire on
Social Media that’s as subtle as Donald Trump’s
Twitter account.
Stranger Things
Actor Joe Keery appears to have prepped for the lead role by guzzling energy drinks by the crate-full. He is Kurt Kunkle, a relentlessly upbeat 23-year-old who has been trying to make it as a social media influencer for the past decade. But viewing figures for @kurtsworld96 remain stubbornly in single digits. So Kurt has found employment in the gig
economy, working as a driver for a taxi hailing app called Spree. Which gives him the idea for some “fresh content” for Instagram: live-streaming himself murdering passengers (his victims include Mischa Barton) by poisoning bottles of mineral water given out free to customers.