The tagline for Favor is an old joke: "A friend helps you move. A good friend helps you move a body." In the first scene, Kip pays his old friend Marvin a surprise visit. After some hemming and hawing, Kip asks for a favor that will test how good their friendship really is.

They go to the hotel room where Kip had hooked up with his side piece earlier that night. Her body is lying next to the bed. Kip claims to have killed her by accident. Marvin overcomes his initial shock and agrees to help. Kip goes home while Marvin drives the body out of town to bury it.

Marvin uses this favor as an opportunity to reignite their long-dormant friendship. It doesn't take long for him to start demanding favors of his own. First it's a little bit of money. Then it's a double date with a friend of Kip's wife. The date is predictably disastrous. Her friend clearly doesn't think this chubby, balding, unemployed cornball is much of a catch. Next it's a job at Kip's advertising agency, which ends as badly as the date. Finally it's more money. A whole lot of it.

Neither of these guys is particularly likeable. Kip's a weasel. Marvin's a schlub. The few pity points Marvin might have earned in the beginning vanish as his behavior turns increasingly psychotic.

The cast is decent. Blayne Weaver is appropriately slimy as Kip. Patrick Day brings the right combination of sad sack and psycho nutbag to Marvin. When Marvin's downward spiral culminates in a brutal act of violence, it's intense and shocking.

The screenplay by writer/director Paul Osborne mostly works. It feels like a lesser version of something that Patricia Highsmith might have written.

Favor is a little contrived but plenty watchable.

7 out of 10.

Seen on Tubi.