Passable

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2017)

This film was OK. Often slow and understated, it looked good and had some mystery to it because of the main character.
Unfortunately he gets less and less believable. He's not just a great driver but also an excellent stuntman. Oh and he's also a natural born mechanic. Oh and he can take out any random mafioso muscle with his bare hands and knows how to quickly grab any handgun or rifle they're carrying, as well as easily grab their knives out of their hands, even when just stabbed and heavily bleeding....
Refn's films had a reputation for dreaminess, don't look for realism in this picture. But I did emotionally connect with the neighbours of the protagonist like he did himself. Plus there's a nice atmosphere, nice synth soundtrack but it doesn't fit too well with the brutally violent crime story narrative.
After having watched part of Neon Demon I felt this film would hold my attention for longer and it did with some shock moments but it was rather those of the cheap kind and certainly not cinematic splendor.
But mostly the film does what it was probably intended to do, to keep you on the edge of your seat at least a little bit like a decent crime thriller, rather than all sorts of raving about the next cinematic masterpiece. If only it had more suspense, a lot of things just went way too easy for the protagonist as if he had been killing bad guys all his life.