Created by Nicolas Winding Refn and Ed Brubaker

Starring Miles Teller, Augusto Aguilera, Cristina Rodlo, Nell Tiger Free, Jena Malone, John Hawkes, Babs Olusanmokun, William Baldwin, and Callie Hernandez

This mesmerizingly pessimistic expression of Nicolas Winding Refn’s avant-garde style gives me precisely what I desire when it comes to this sort of slow-burn and dreamlike storytelling. My god, I had this on my watchlist for a while as a fan of NWR’s voice, particularly Drive, which is one of my all-time favorite films. And when this Prime Video show kicks things off, it conveys NWR’s artistic intentions so damn clearly. It patiently and meticulously rolls out the pacing that I say is gradual while others call it glacial. It gives the camera time to crawl along or stay entirely still. It provides the characters with the space they need to have lengthy pauses stretch onward in between their sentences. It plants the actors in the right mood for them add their own nuances to a grimly hypnotic world that exists in NWR’s altered plane of reality. It gets me settled into a vibe where I can sit back, letting the show flow over me, letting the atmosphere drown me in its lushly synth gorgeousness. I’m sitting in such a state for about twenty minutes or so before gunshots burst into life onscreen and spill blood, shattering the calm with its sudden violence. It genuinely elicits a jolt from me, effectively working like a jumpscare. This isn’t the only time that the series pulls this trick, and it’s a clever choice that deftly switches the narrative back and forth between these two modes—one that’s seductively quiet and one that’s explosively bloody. Either way, I adore what this achieves in a fashion that borrows some energy from David Lynch, with Lost Highway definitely being an example that pops into my head.

Then we have this boasting such a strong cast. I know the marketing presents Miles Teller as the star, but really, this is much more of an ensemble tale that gives several of its members good meat to work with. Teller, Cristina Rodlo, Augusto Aguilera, pre-The First Omen Nell Tiger Free, post-The Neon Demon Jena Malone, John Hawkes, Babs Olusanmokun, William Baldwin—they all understand the assignment and mesh so smoothly with NWR’s style. Rodlo and Aguilera particularly stand out as the captivating pair of Yaritza and Jesus. He’s embarking on a ruthless path of vengeance on behalf of his murdered mother who he loved so dearly, with Yaritza assisting his transformation into a terrifying and cruel kingpin. Then she has her own arc that sees her pursuing a brutal brand of justice, landing as an appropriate road for her to take in this landscape of fear and agony that the show is diving into. I could go on and on about these characters and what they embody in the predatory and poisonous darkness of this tale, and it just goes to show how much material there is for us to latch onto here. It’s why I actually reject the “style over substance” claim for this series, and I know that gets tossed at NWR a lot, but this show in particular is doing such a top-notch job at depicting its style as a major part of the substance itself. The imagery alone offers up plenty for me to devour and interpret, and I’m sure there’s quite a bit of its symbolism that I haven’t fully caught onto yet. It’s all part of an experimental narrative that tests how much you really click with NWR’s work—a narrative that gives him the freedom he needs to indulge his ambition and lay out his pessimistic commentary on the misogynistic, rapist, pedophilic, abusive, greedy, hateful, and sadistic evil of this world.

As utterly gruesome and cynical as this can become, though, its not without its relatively lighter and funnier beats, such as Baldwin sniffing and snorting up a storm, a bunch of cops enthusiastically partaking in a cheer where they repeatedly scream “FASCISM!” before one of those pigs gets up and strums his ukulele in honor of Jesus (the one from the Bible, not the character who’s named that in the series), and Malone dancing along to Goldfrapp’s “Ooh La La.” It’s a nice tonal balance that NWR is able to pin down, slipping some dark humor into the tale so that I can get some chuckles out of it while dealing with all of the grimness. And to top it all off, the score by Cliff Martinez (who’s collaborated with NWR multiple times) further rounds out this neo-noir atmosphere that’s luring me into its surreal grasp. Martinez had already done an excellent job on Drive, with “He Had a Good Time” being a favorite piece of mine, so it’s not surprising one bit to hear his music enhance NWR’s art.

All in all, I’m excited to determine how Too Old to Die Young holds up in the future, because I’m thinking I could regard it with the same amount of appreciation that I have for Drive. We shall see.

Final rating: 5 out of 5 stars