On the Count of Three” opens at the dejected eyes of Kevin (Christopher Abbott), a thirty-something who's pointing a gun at his exceptional pal Val (Jerrod Carmichael), who in flip additionally pursuits a deadly weapon again at him. Even eleven though the movie gets more and more out of manipulating, that preliminary shot of Kevin`s despondent gaze, voicelessly expressing his emotional exhaustion, lingers as its maximum essential. 
 This worrying prologue isn`t the climax of a disagreement among men. They have agreed to shoot each other withinside the head, to devote suicide in tandem, forsaking this global at once. A last-2d extra de of coronary heart ruins Val`s impromptu plan one early morning out of doors of a strip club. Kevin`s hesitation to shoot, an act of selfless love of which he's successful although trapped in his personal self-destruction, may also have given his brother in hopelessness a 2d chance. Val is of the same opinion to “enjoy” one greater day earlier than calling it quits on life. 
 Convinced those are their very last hours above ground, the 2 start a street experience headed in the direction of the end, an end apparently in their personal volition however derived from haunting trauma, with more than one spontaneous stop to attain retribution from the ones they deem liable for their pain. Overflowing with a chaotic truthfulness approximately the human condition`s bleakest shadows, the movie reveals pitch-darkish hilarity withinside the absurd realizations they've after making this pact. Carmichael directs for the primary time in a double-obligation show off increasing our notion of his talent. 
 There`s a morbid gleefulness to Kevin`s outlook early withinside the ordeal. His demeanor displays a feeling of liberation acquired from believing his struggle is sort of over. He won`t go back to the intellectual organization in which they couldn`t assist him anyway. Sundance Award-prevailing writers Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch gift Kevin as a person with a long time of mental torment, which places Val`s afflictions—a rocky romantic dating and an activity he despises—into perspective. And yet, eleven though we recognize that their reasoning for trying to die isn`t comparable, their desperation is the same. And they each gravitate to a violent “solution.” The portrayal of those subtleties is in the middle of how “On the Count of Three” discusses men`s intellectual fitness in a way that feels wealthy and true. 
 For example, Kevin`s vibrant hair highlights and colorfully matted garb region him as a person protecting directly from his rebellious adolescence. That he casually pulls out his iPod Nano, an artifact that straight away dates him speaks of an arrested maturity. Even greater in order that he chooses to play Papa Roach`s “Last Resort” as an on-the-nostril anthem matching the nation of his psyche. Kevin is the photo of white millennial tension all the time caught withinside the early 2000s, however additionally a guilt-ridden liberal hyper-privy to how his movements or the matters he says maybe interpreted primarily based totally on his privilege. 
 All of these factors come alive in Abbott`s ostentatious interpretation of the conflicted individual, a mentally embattled character with a righteous chip on his shoulder given the prejudice of his childhood, however, who isn`t absolutely unsympathetic to the ones around him. Alongside his name position in “James White,” every other unbiased function in which a younger guy battles internal turbulence of a one of a kind type, this stands as one in every of Abbott`s maximum extraordinary performances, rendered so indelible in its erratic kookiness and outburst of guarded earnestness as it performs contrary Carmichael`s greater confined unraveling. 
 “It`s like your unhappy searching eyes were given reason all of a sudden,” Val tells Kevin even as on an elevator ascending to what the latter hopes can be a fateful reckoning for a primary villain from his past. Later, Val meets with a quarrelsome discern of his personal: his girlfriend, and destiny mom of his child, Nat (performed through a marvelously stern Tiffany Haddish). 
 Throughout this ghastly adventure, Katcher and Welch take time to mine levity from Kevin`s ironic self-recognition approximately his hypocritical stance on gun manipulation as he holds a firearm with the goal to install it, his inadequate dedication to speaking approximately race with Val, and the numerous times wherein Val ought to rein in their “pleasure ride” to hell. As weird because the tone must land on paper, “On the Count of Three” again and again capabilities chuckle-worthy, if now no longer sidesplitting moments. 
 Interwoven with the profanity-ridden banter that facilities Val`s annoyance with Kevin`s behavior, which could lead us to assume their dating remains at the surface, there are profoundly touching exchanges that exhibit otherwise. For example, midway thru their lethal escapade, Kevin thanks Val for usually seeking to uplift him. His counterpart responds with the inspiration that in which they locate themselves approach his efforts have been in vain. Those droplets of sorrowful lucidness assist the movie go beyond the area of mere provocation. 
 Captured on celluloid, there`s a richness to the colorations on screen, whether or not the purple façade of the nightlife established order in which the duo nearly perished is paired with the drab herbal palette of the New Jersey wintry weather or contrasts among co-leads outward appearances. One ought to say that cinematographer Marshall Adams, with a profession totally on television, capitalized on the possibility to shoot a task with first-rate kinetic pressure on 35mm. A midnight chase set to an evocative rating testifies to Carmichael`s cappotential to make a vivid, aesthetically memorable directorial debut. 
 Ultimately, any film approximately suicide walks on inherently treacherous terrain, and one`s appreciation for “On the Count of Three” will hinge on each viewer`s consolation area or private triggers to have interaction with manufacturing that, even as now no longer disrespectful or blasé approximately intellectual fitness struggles, does take a novel method that a few may also understand as insensitive. Yet, opposite to what a few ought to infer from the final results of this narrative, I don`t consider the filmmakers glorifying the pair`s revenge fantasy, nor do they use the truth that Val goes to grow to be a father as a magic bullet to resolve the vacancy that plagues him. There aren't any guarantees of that, however alternatively the understanding that he now ought to do not forget whether or not he desires to be an everlasting scar on every other being. 
 Sometimes melancholy tricks