Despising the British upper class is so utterly common, as we see in “The Riot Club,” a farcically heavy-handed attempted satiric takedown of an elite group of Oxford students.
Modeled on the real-life Bullingdon Club, whose alumni include leading British politicians David Cameron and Boris Johnson, the social circle of the title is a secretive gang of 10 depraved rich boys who evolve predictably from drunken churls into savages as the film goes on. Written by Laura Wade and based on her play, the film (which stars Sam Claflin and Max Irons as new members) is so outlandishly over the top that it tells us nothing about the actual Bullingdon boys and everything about its hysterical author, who has the members shouting things like, “I am sick to f - - king death of poor people!”
Director Lone Scherfig, who showed such subtlety in “An Education,” this time proves embarrassingly vulgar, giving the film the unfortunate aura of an angry leaflet being handed out on a street corner by a wild-eyed protester.