Aggro Dr1ft

Chalk up another "compliment" to the man toasted as a visionary and the 'future of cinema." I walked out of the theater after 30 minutes. I've never done that in my life until now.

I love shocking, next-level cinema like Titane, Enter the Void, The Tribe, and more, but Agrro Dr1ft is just dull, senseless, and irritating to the eyes. It is a low-grade video of blurry people walking around a room in disturbing three tone neon colors with a few royal palm trees and sports cars thrown in to give you the "Miami experience." Dialogue is sparse and idiotic. Characters like "Bo the Assassin" dressed head to toe in soccer knee pads, socks, and swim goggles (shout out to the innovative costume designer) are so pathetic and ridiculous that I wanted nothing more than to punch them in their faces, hard and immediately.

The theater experience wasn't any better. It was hot, stuffy, and complete with a cramped seat next to an obnoxious, insensibly screeching, drunk frat boy moron with a full beer that he placed, with a shaky hand, on the uplifted floor just behind my head.

The "retina scorching" infrared colors are something I was never tired of during this film. A surreal, meandering story that cascades from PS2 style voice work to meditative thoughts on love, hate, violence, and purpose. It's about everything and nothing. I have to give major props to Arnaud, Joao, and Leo (and the editing team) on crafting some absolutely excellent visuals.

A whole section could be devoted to AraabMuzik's excellent soundtrack that toes the line between hip hop and ambient. It really carried the vibe to a whole new level.

Is this film anything other than vibe with some interesting things here and there? Not really, but I don't think that Harmony was intending anything beyond that.

There is no movie like AGGRO DR1FT.

Harmony Korine returns to coastal Florida with his own unique alternative style of filmmaking. His new film is a surreal, intoxicating visual experience that almost demands being seen on the big screen, more so than any of his previous work. Korine can be proud of creating such an ethereal work of colors and moods. The only catch is that's all you should look for in this film.

A professional assassin who takes great pride in his craft prepares to take on a sadistic gangster. The plot, character development and dialogue are not going to be the basis for seeing this film, mostly because the structure of all the above is so minimal to the point of malnourishment.

None of this is meant to imply that Korine cannot be a powerful storyteller. Anyone who remembers his work in "Kids" back in the day will know how edgy and provocative his ideas can be. But again, the understanding is that here you are not looking for anything profound or insightful. This is a kaleidoscopic fever dream that will put a smile on your face if you know what to expect going in. Recommended to those who can throw conventional expectations to the wind, if only for once.

Dunno how else to describe this film. To say it's experimental is certainly the understatement of the century. In fact it's not really a conventional film. It's extremely straightforward like a linear videogame. If anything a video game would be great for this setting. It doesn't feel as much as it does a crime movie set in Miami, but in an alternative universe where Miami is a multi-colored hyper-stylized dream-like plane of existence where shapes and colors form all around.

The uniqueness of the film isn't much so the look of the film, but also the symbolism. It's not that much of a deep movie, if anything it's literally a movie about a troubled soul slaying his inner demons. Both metaphorically and literally.

Lotta things in here don't really make much sense tho, like the entire sequence with Travis Scott's Zion character and the other assassins that protagonist "Bo" trains and anoints as his worthy underlings. Perhaps he fears in leaving the life behind he would have nothing to show for it. After all, what kind of world's greatest assassin would he be if he was no longer an assassin? Tho I can't help but feel a lot of those scenes were just Korine screwing around and filming everything he can extremely slowly so he can pad out the runtime.

I feel like this film would have highly benefited if it was a short film instead of but meh.

For a film that's 1hr and 20mins the pacing is VERY slow and it slogs quite a bit and I can't imagine it wouldn't just be a total bore fest for some people. I can't say however that I was disappointed tho. I wasn't expecting big action scenes or shootouts as the trailer didn't really give me that feel. However the film would have most definitely benefited from that too.

All you really had to do was just essentially make Doom Eternal with the aesthetics of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon and you'd be all set. A film like this can work in theory, but making it painfully slow doesn't work for a film about the world's greatest assassin killing demons and greedy pigs.

You can tell this was on a shoestring budget and some scenes certainly show it. The acting and dialogue for some characters are HORRENDOUSLY bad. Straight Neil Breen type acting at times. Sometimes corny and campy but sometimes serviceable.

Yes the film looks cool. Can't even say the obvious AI in some scenes didn't look cool either. The film oozes aesthetic and I like the overall feeling of unease that some scenes make you feel.

Feels more like one of those psychedelic YouTube Poops you'd see where the whole thing is a nonsensical acid trip of symbols and strange visuals but with some little hidden things sprinkled throughout.

Some people I'd say are kinda overreacting with the low ratings when it comes to Korine using AI. I feel like they just aren't judging the film properly based on what's there, they're just going by their emotions on how they feel about a director using a tool that'll most likely go out of style in 10 years.

This isn't a major Hollywood blockbuster. This is just some 50 year old Jewish guy's backyard tech demo project. I'm sure he knows this isn't gonna dazzle the crowds. If he was confident in it being a success he wouldn't have had it screened out of competition for Venice.

All in all this is a harmless film that no one's really gonna rewatch or remember. Just meh. A decent-ish meh. But meh.

5/10.

Harmony Korine is one of those filmmakers that I find fascinating because his works are outright bizarre and strange in many ways. His works on Gummo, Spring Breakers, Julien Donkey-Boy, Mr. Lonely, and so forth have been experimental and really out there, which admittedly, I have enjoyed them.

This new Korine film is a surreal and visual experimental shot entirely in infrared presentation.....and it both works and doesn't. The visuals and the sound designs are strikingly and amazing with the colors, musical score and sound designs being very good. Including some bizarre moments that are edgy yet provocative in interesting ways. However, I do understand what Korine is going for with the atmosphere, narrative, and structure which while I do appreciate Korine doing what he does, this 80-minute project ends up feeling malnourished and left to nothing as it continues. It becomes aimless and quite full of itself, that it ends up being tedious.

Experimental movies are a mix bag for me as I enjoyed quite a bit but there are some that go far right one's mind that it becomes quite pretentious, and this one is one of them. At the end, it's something I can't say I like or hate as I am in the middle. But it's definitely something to be watched once for sure.