Review: ‘Uwantme2killhim’ gets tangled up in its own Web

The greatest trick that director Bryan Singer ever pulled was to fool audiences with an unreliable narrator in “The Usual Suspects.”

Singer is a producer on the new “Uwantme2killhim?” But this time the unreliable narrative seems to convince only the film’s luckless protagonist.

Based on a true story recounted by Vanity Fair in 2005, “Uwantme2killhim?” traces in flashback the steps of 16-year-old Mark (Jamie Blackley) leading up to him knifing his best friend, John (Toby Regbo).

In true film noir fashion, Mark falls under the spell of someone who is, for all intents and purposes, a femme fatale. Apparently entangled in a World Wide Web of lies and deceit, Mark only interfaces with the femme fatale in cyberspace. How a teen preoccupied with his raging hormones gets there only to become consumed by this murder plot remains anyone’s guess.

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Andrew Douglas, who directed the 2005 “The Amityville Horror” remake, mishandles the standard noir as straightforward drama and gives it an unfortunate after-school-special vibe.

For “Downton Abbey” fans, the highlight here is to see the series’ saintly maid Anna, actress Joanne Froggatt, in the part of the police detective Sarah Clayton. But much like her “Downton” cast mates Dan Stevens in “The Fifth Estate,” Hugh Bonneville in “The Monuments Men” and Michelle Dockery in “Non-Stop,” Froggatt’s presence here is delightful but negligible.

‘Uwantme2killhim?’ No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes. At Laemmle’s NoHo 7 in North Hollywood. Also on VOD.