AGGRO DR1FT review: Travis Scott and Harmony Korine’s film is a complete mess

It’s rare to see a film that challenges basic assumptions about how films are made or what they should look like. It’s even rarer to see a film in a way that’s truly enjoyable. AGGRO DR1FTnew movie from spring Breakers And Beach bum Directed by Harmony Korine and co-directed by rapper and music producer Travis Scott, it’s certainly not your average film, but it’s no exception to the rule either. It’s strange and largely uneventful – some viewers will probably jump ship in five minutes or less. But it’s also extremely entertaining in the rare moments when it’s truly coherent.

AGGRO DR1FT follows Bo (Jordi Molla), a middle-aged man who deeply loves his wife and children. He is also the world’s greatest killer. He tells the audience both of these things directly, through the omnipresent voice-over narration. For most of the film, BO wanders aimlessly around Florida from one meeting to another. The encounters are connected only by his narration, which only half the time seems connected to the plot. The plot, as it stands, follows Bo’s attempt to kill the Beast, a demonic villain with giant wings who wields two katanas and hangs out with scantily clad women whom he sometimes keeps in cages.

It’s not entirely clear what the Beast did to earn the contract placed on his head, but at one point he stands between two bikini-clad women and chants, “Dance, bitch. Dance, bitch” over and over until the scene finally cuts and Bo’s narration says, “There’s magic in this cruelty.” I can’t say for sure what this means, but I can say that Korine seems to believe it’s true, and that it fits exactly with the tone of the rest of the film. More than once we see the Beast thrusting his pelvis while holding a sword and screaming for several continuous seconds, only for BO to intervene in the narrative, telling us how terrible The Beats are.

Image: EDGLRD

BO drives around south Florida buying sniper rifles, telling viewers to be careful with strippers because if you look into their eyes for too long, you’ll lose your soul, and meet other killers, including Travis Scott’s character, Zion , which is BO. I think he took me under his wing. But after every short trip, BO always returns to his home base, where his wife is waiting for him in bed, her voiceover talking about how much she misses him and wants to have sex with him.

But what makes it all fascinating is that AGGRO DR1FT is accidentally a more insightful look at incel fantasies than most films that actually attempt to depict the lives of incels.

BO is a little dumb, but he has a cool, sexy job, a cool, sexy wife and a family that he loves very much and is willing to do anything to protect. He also sees evil everywhere in the cruel and terrible world. He just looks like a masked demon holding samurai swords. His wife is perfect and needs to be protected, but strippers are evil sirens who exist to steal men’s souls.

All this performative hyper-masculinity seems to be filtered through the lens of a 14-year-old boy screaming on Xbox Live because he’s playing Modern Warfare 2. Evil is something that can be defeated with a special sniper rifle, and women are meant to be protected, not talked to. The film doesn’t create a coherent ideology, but it’s clear that Bo’s worldview is inherently complacent, and the world of the film warps around his justification.

What’s unique about AGGRO DR1FT sees it all presented so brazenly, without the defense of irony or sarcasm to sugarcoat it. However, like much of the film, it’s fun to think about but actually an absolute slog to watch.

The most uncomplicated interesting thing AGGRO DR1FTBut here’s what it looks like: Shot entirely with an infrared camera, with morphing neon colors that are often inverted, moving characters from bright, featureless red to bright, featureless blue, it looks unique. This is not a very good choice – often the film looks like just an ugly mishmash of colors. But this style could have been put to good use in another, more carefully thought out and shot film. The blocky neon blur of the bright colors often used in infrared photography also makes room for the film’s best and most interesting feature: the moving illustrations that appear within the colors.

Image: EDGLRD

When a character or space (such as the sky) turns completely into a dark red hue, ink-like illustrations begin to appear within the color, creating demonic heads, intricate machine parts, or presumably whatever design Scott or Corinne thought looked neat. These moments sometimes mean a lot, such as when a huge demon monster appears, when BO commits particularly disgusting violence that seems to reflect his own self-image. While these illustrations appear repeatedly throughout the film, especially in the second half, they feel criminally underused and a disappointing waste of excellent stylistic choices.

Reading all this, it might be tempting to assume that, despite all the shortcomings, AGGRO DR1FT at least entertaining or exciting. I cannot stress enough that this is not the case. For all the talk of demons and murder, much of the film’s nearly 90-minute running time is taken up by characters moving from place to place, standing awkwardly or walking around South Florida.

Writing a review on AGGRO DR1FT already allowing Korina to win. It’s defiantly unconventional and deliberately provocative. I can’t say that the movie made me very angry, but I can say that I’m glad that Harmony Korine won. He deserved it; AGGRO DR1FT is a dumb, ridiculous, and headache-inducing movie that’s worth watching. It’s almost impossible to tell whether any moment in the film is completely joke or completely sincere – this is called AGGRO DR1FT, For God’s sake. This is a meaningless phrase written in capital letters, with 1 replacing I; For all we know, it might as well be Travis Scott’s gamertag. But the film is more than that. This is the clearest portrayal of a certain kind of distinctly male inner life I’ve ever seen, and it makes sense to do it in such a strangely unfiltered way. AGGRO DR1FT It’s not an enjoyable movie or a particularly well-made one, but it’s the movie I’ve been thinking about the most this year. For better or worse, it’s worth something.

AGGRO DR1FT was screened at the New York and Toronto Film Festivals, but a wide release date is currently unknown.

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