Amazon Studios
Episodes seen: 2 (144 mins), Cannes Film Festival 2019.
Nicolas Winding Refn returns to Cannes for the first time since the polarising The Neon Demon made its debut back in 2016. Three years on and it is a very different product, albeit with similar themes and tones; a TV series set for release on Amazon next month. Too Old To Die Young is very much a different direction for the filmmaker with 900 minutes of content promised over ten episodes, two of which, running at around 140 minutes in total, played at the festival at a late screening on Friday evening with the cast and filmmaker in attendance at the famous Palais.
Teaming with Ed Brubaker (Westworld), the crime series lies somewhere in its themes, tone and accessibility between his 2011 Cannes winner Drive, and fellow Ryan Gosling-starrer Only God Forgives. Miles Teller leads the cast of this new piece as Martin, an LA cop with a troubled past; his partner has died and now whilst still fulfilling his duties as a police officer, also engages in some extra-curricular activities, notably seeking out the baddest bad guys in the rotten underbelly of the Los Angeles underworld. There’s also William Baldwin as a guy who we don’t know too much about yet – except for that he’s incredibly rich, lives in a nice house, and has a very successful teenage daughter Janey (Nell Tiger Free) – who is having some sort of relationship with Martin. John Hawkes is Viggo, also a vigilante and a friend to Martin, Jenna Malone, an Refn alumni who seems to be an important part of this new world, and two brothers, a couple of Texas-based pornographers specialising in an horrific niche of videos, and a large part of the fifth episode (the second we viewed here in Cannes).
Related: Too Old To Die Young teaser trailer
Refn uses his new canvas well, the extended format clearly suiting him as he takes us on a terrifying, often uncomfortable journey into the wild unknown. Though there are three episodes before what we were allowed to view, both of the two episodes we did see were very much self-contained and could play as one long movie – clearly the filmmakers’ intention. You’re left wanting for more after the second/fifth episode which takes on quite the trip – standouts being a foreboding sequence in a Texan barm followed by a rather unconventional car chase involving the use of Barry Manilow’s seminal ballad ‘Mandy’.
Too Old To Die Young’s sheer unpredictability, combined with Ref’s trademark visuals and symbolism – of which there is a lot to feast over – as well as reams of dark, dark humour are its biggest assets. I left the screening wondering where it would take us next, and after 140 minutes-plus, I could have watched more.
Like most of his work, it will polarise, and indeed shock – it is very violent; some of it sexual violence, both implied and on-screen – it contains full frontal nudity, and will in no doubt take the viewer to even darker places than what we’ve witnessed so far, which was in itself very dark indeed. It’s bold, exciting film-making from an already accomplished auteur feasting on the opportunity of working in a new medium where he is seeming to thrive.
Too Old To Die Young will be available in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video from 14th June 2019.
