Too Old to Die Young

In the two episodes screened for critics, we learn almost nothing about Martin, who Teller plays with taciturn menace. Teller is nonetheless riveting. ... Too Old to Die Young is extremely not for everyone, and some people are going to really hate it, while others are going to think it's brilliant. [Prime Video only screened episodes 4 and 5]

This is a story about sexual violence and the misogynist spectacle is uncomfortable, although arguably part of the point. It could be that Jena Malone, glimpsed here at any early stage, will have a greater part to play. Too Old To Die Young is macabre, and nauseating in many ways, but very well made and very watchable.

Scenes go on FOREVER, to the point that they either become mesmerizing or stultifying. I fell more on the former side but wouldn’t question anyone who considers this the dullest thing streaming this year. ... All of this means that “Too Old to Die Young” is unlike anything else you’ll see on TV this year. Television is still largely a writer’s medium, and so it’s fascinating to see something that is so clearly and distinctly the product of a director’s unique vision. [Prime Video only screened episodes 4 and 5]

Viewed as a single unit, the episodes were a mixed bag of self-serious storytelling and pulpy action, with whispery exchanges that drag on for minutes at a time, set against Refn’s standard subterranean vision of an ominous modern-day Los Angeles. [Prime Video only screened episodes 4 and 5]

[A] limping, baggy megillah, which fails to justify its marathon-length running time as anything more than a self-satisfying, hardboiled-by-numbers folly.

Aesthetic is all “Too Old to Die Young” has to boast. ... Jumping in around the series’s midpoint, [Martin Jones' (Miles Teller)] decisions and relationships seemed random, emphasizing the degree to which the show’s bits of mythologizing and its gratuitousness spring from the clear blue sky. [Prime Video only screened episodes 4 and 5]

Stylishly crafted but stultifyingly dull. ... Jesus had better be some kind of savior if Too Old to Die Young is going to be more than just a ponderously portentous sleazefest shaken out of its torpor by the occasional bloodbath. [Prime Video only screened episodes 4 and 5]

When I thought "Chernobyl" was the series of the year 2019, "Too Old to Die Young" was released and, then, there was a tie.

As has been happening to Refn since Only God Forgives, he's sacrificing style for substance and Too Old to Die Young is his most ambitious effort to date in that regard, but ambitious doesn't mean that it's actually good. The problems of this miniseries are not its themes, not even its violence, the problems lie in the way in which Refn decides to tell the story and the duration has a lot to do with it and this is because it's a long time in which nothing happens. The first two episodes are lethargic and between the two of them are just over 3 hours. I was honestly tempted not to continue, but the series improves and becomes a bit more stimulating after episode 4. The miniseries is also confusing and never tries to give explanations, what happens on screen until the ending relies on you to make sense of it and frankly if you're part of the audiences that needs answers, then I must say this will only disappoint you. At least I give Refn credit and half an extra star for making a television product - although I know it' streaming - which is nothing like what exists on TV. I think that only HBO would've dared to do something like that and part of me doubts it, and that's why Refn deserves recognition but if he honestly tries again something similar, I hope he's more concise and less pretentious.

Like many Nicolas Winding Refn projects, this series will try many viewers patience. It is often excruciatingly slowly paced, which at times can draw you in to the enchanting aesthetic he has created, but at other times is simply off-putting. Overall, this series has a fairly interesting storyline and is consistently beautiful, but is definitely aimed at a specific audience. I imagine most general viewers would absolutely hate it.

I know it feels terrible to have been wasted 13 precious hours of your life on this, but I can’t believe there are actually people defending this show. It felt just like yet another provocation from NWR. Most episodes are almost 90 minutes long, yet they have 15 minutes worth of footage. The rest is long silences, static shots with slow pullbacks, endless dollies across the landscapes as people walk around, have semi-disjointed conversations, **** drive, eat pie, **** or kill someone we don’t even know. The photography is gorgeous as usual, but as it always looks kind of the same, you get tired of it pretty fast. Sometimes shots are so dark and saturated that I couldn’t understand what was going on. There is a lot of gruesome violence, but as with the rest, habituation kicks in pretty fast. I guess that at least up to a certain point the “plot” was alright, even though there is no narrative structure whatsoever. It’s like cinematic diarrhea: what comes out comes out, in no particular order. There are two main storylines happening simultaneously, but instead of alternating scenes from each character as most TV shows, Refn had this insane idea of dedicating full episodes to either storyline and amplify this awful sense of having been spent hours to get nowhere (remember, each episode is as long as a feature film and less content than a Youtube prank video). It gets a little better after the first couple of episodes, mainly due to the consistently hypnotic atmosphere that **** you in, and especially that one absurd scene in each episode that wakes you up from the nihilist numbness, the most memorable ones being: 1) A random Korean dude goes to borrow money from the Japanese mafia and gets his finger chipped off with a katana by Hideo Kojima: 2) A guy’s severed hands left in the middle of the room as we listen to reggae; 3) William Baldwin making tiger noises and **** in his own movie theater: 4) The bad guys unable to find the right song to listen on the radio during a car chase; 5) The fascist police department performing the Passion of Christ with a broom and the Eucharist with potato chips. By the way, even though a few characters’ arcs got inevitably closed, there is no ending and there won’t be a second season. Too bad because I was at least looking forward to seeing everyone die.

What a waste of time. Ridiculous script, direction and acting. A lose-lose all around.