The Weeknd: False Alarm

I have not watched the feature Hardcore Henry, but by most accounts is not so good; I guess that the POV action stuff is better in short form rather than creating a whole narrative using it. Perhaps related, the director has returned to the short music video form that gave him such success with Biting Elbows, and has made this video for The Weekend. The film is the getaway from a bank robbery, and relies very heavily on movement and action to work. On this front it does, and it is very much like a video game scene – GTA5 comes to mind, but I know the director also worked on Payday 2, so maybe that is a better reference.

The film is a short, impacting ride – very violent and without any emotional context to draw you in, but it is the speed that makes it work. Technically it is very impressive in how it is all put together, and there are lots of cool ideas within this too – the use of the mini-drone, the jumping between vehicles, the shooting through the side of the vehicle, etc. It does play very well, and the FPS-view suits the video game content. In the end it is still a novelty piece that will play very well online but doesn't leave you with much after – which is fine, because it does deliver in the moment, which is what it is all about.

I love the f- out of Ilya Naishuller's Bad Motherf-er, i may have replayed the living heck out of that video, with Hardcore Henry he had definitely outdone himself.

And with his latest hit, surprisingly a music video for another music group that is not Biting Elbows, takes an action-packed, kinetic and highly entertaining project that serves as both an insanely well choreographed bank-robbing scenario and a kick-ass dressing for a kick-ass song.

It also shows how much he liked his collab on Payday's 2 script since the bank heist scenario, while shorter than the other half and thus concentrating more on the runaway, is gritty, police forces and bystanders are getting shot at, and the POV's character, is such a cool out mix of Henry's likeliness as an anti-heroic character (not that he doesn't show to be giving a f- to people at surroundings, but neither does he look unapparent to that) and a mercilessly random GTA player, it gives a conscience to the "Hero" and the smallest emotions shared toward him and another character are well rounded and realized.

(Although i feel like between this and HH, Ilya has quite a different point of view of love.)

Also, Ilya Naishuller manages to achieve something quite odd, by giving some charisma to the main character, because he really doesn't show to be a perfect action hero, nor he does things done flawlessly on his own, it's a somewhat nice character you kinda effortlessly root for.

Expect also quite amazing stuntwork and awesome blood-thirsty gunfire-driven action that while not being as mindblowingly gory as Hardcore Henry, it doesn't stop it from being more violent than the standard music video as it genuinely feels as though you were watching a next-gen gameplay of an FPS.

And quite an excitingly blood-pumping good short action story well told in less time that a film could do so.

AMAZING. Can't say I've seen many music videos, but I can say this is quite possibly the best one I've seen BY FAR. Even if you're not a huge Weeknd fan, (which I can definitely say I'm not), this is still a must see for the stylish direction alone! Love this director!

If you cherish your brain cells, you'll avoid this film. The director clearly has no idea how to develop a plot or anything even resembling character development. Why anyone would ever fund one of his films is beyond me. Dude needs to retire and get a job doing wedding videos.