Might have been an OK film with a competent director

Rating: 4/10 (20 December 2019)

At one point this movie had a chance of being a decent film. But the director is so prodigiously incompetent that it never had a chance. The director is Nicolas Winding Refn, the same director that gave us Only God Forgives, one of the most tedious, self-important, unwatchable movies I have ever seen. And, unfortunately, his indelible stamp is on this one as well. So, instead of getting decent storytelling, we get overproduced music blaring in our ears at inopportune moments. We get dialogue so laconic that we are forced to scratch our heads and ask ourselves "who would ever talk like this?" We get mood and style bludgeoned repeatedly into our senses with the dexterity of a bull moose arranging a china cabinet, the result of which is our craving to leave the theater and go outside to take a walk just to re-experience what the normal world is like. It's as if the director planted a bomb in a style, mood, art, and directing class factory so that it exploded and splattered bits of the indulgences haphazardly all over the screen. It was a directorial mess.
If you want to see style in a director watch Stanley Kubrick. If you want to see mood, watch Coppola. If you want to see competence watch Scorsese, Lean, Ford, or the Coens. But avoid watching another movie by this pufferfish of a director. His movies are exercises in missed opportunities. And any movie he makes is an opportunity you should gladly miss.