One. Kevin and Val are uninspired thirty-somethings who decide that the only way forward is to end things altogether, together.

Two. With a suicide pact scheduled and guns loaded, Val and Kevin stand eye-to-eye, pistol-to-temple.

Three. A last-minute bid for more time and closure forces Kevin to pull out of the pact at the final moment, suggesting that they enjoy one more day before calling it quits on life.

ON THE COUNT OF THREE is a twist on the “live every day as if it were your last”, an existential road movie of settling old scores, wiping boards clean, and messing up all over again.

Saturday Night Live writers Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch have cooked up an eloquent and adroit script that keeps the metal to the pedal for most of its nifty ninety minute run.

They have as their director and star, SNL alumni, Jerrod Carmichael. Jerrod plays the emotionally conflicted Val and Christopher Abbott plays his schizophrenic pal, Kevin.

When not delusional, Kevin can be lucid, when not fixated, Kevin can be fun. But there’s something about Kevin, harbouring deep seated grudges against schoolyard bullies and kiddie fiddling physicians.

Henry Winkler guest stars as a shrink who allegedly abused Kevin while a juvenile patient, and who Kevin wants to kill.

ON THE COUNT OF THREE is a wild ride of calculated, calibrated gallows humour, a comic-tragic commentary on the burden of mortality, the blindness of ambition, and the banality of bullying.

Kevin’s encounter with a class room bully, now a military man with a young family, is particularly telling, as the guy brags about his bullying, his wife abetting it, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to persecute the other, the different, the afflicted.

An employer pep talk endured by Val is also a sobering scene about hollow aspiration and shallow ambition.

ON THE COUNT OF THREE is an existential Mexican stand-off, a Russian roulette rollercoaster that retains its tension for most of its run.