By Nick Nitkowski

“Aggro Dr1ft” is a movie I heard about a while ago. I saw no trailer for it. All I knew about it is that it was shot entirely in infra-red and that it was direct by Harmony Korine who directed “Spring Breakers” and “The Beach Bum” among other things. The infrared aspect of the film was worrisome to say the least because it’s a very different aesthetic compared to filming in black and white. But I took a chance with it and gave it a fair shot. So, how does the film stand on its own?

Not very well apparently because I absolutely hated this film. I really did give this film a fair shot. I really did. But it was such a chore to get through and a painful one at that. If the infrared imagery in every single shot doesn’t give you a headache, the dialogue absolutely will.

The film stars Jordi Mollá, who I know best as the bad guy Johnny Tapia from “Bad Boys II”, who plays an assassin sent to do one last job but all he really wants is to be with his family. While throughout the film he provides narrative dialogue and it is the absolute worst dialogue ever I’ve ever heard. Not only is it bad, but it is repetitive and I am not even close to exaggerating. He often repeats himself in the same sentences over and over again. “I’m the world’s greatest assassin” x 5, “I just want my money” x 4, and it gets so annoying after a while to the point where I felt like slamming my head against something.

It’s not just him, the antagonist in the film, whose name I don’t recall being given nor do I know the actor that played him, says the same thing in a demonic voice while dry-humping the air repeatedly just because and it’s laughably dumb. Which reminds me of the fact that every single piece of dialogue in this film in noticeably ADR’d. I think there maybe two scenes in the whole film that might have had actual on set audio recordings. And not only were the lines badly written, but they were also very badly delivered. I’m talking worse than “The Room” level bad because it simply lacks the absurdity that makes it fun. While suck deliveries seemed to have made the audience laugh, I was just groaning in my seat with my head buried deep in my hand.

The film also introduces a bunch of other assassin characters, one of which is played by Travis Scott, and they literally do nothing in the movie except do a bunch of gun poses for the infrared camera. In fact, 65% of this movie is just poses for the camera, 30% is bad dialogue, and only 5% of action at the end which was very dumb and anticlimactic. But I was aching to leave the theater long before that because very little happens in this movie.

The film runs at just an hour and 20 minutes which seems merciful for a film like this, but all the bad and repetitive dialogue, the gun poses, the hip thrusts, and severe lack of storytelling made it feel so much longer than it was. The infrared imagery was the least problematic thing in this film compared to everything else. I don’t condone the use of drugs in any way, but I can’t help but feel as though this movie would be more enjoyable while on acid or any other sort of hallucinogen. Perhaps that’s exact how it was meant to be seen. That or to be played in the background muted at some late-night frat party.

Overall, “Aggro Dr1ft” felt like it wasn’t meant to be a film. I think it would have been much better suited as either a short film, or a music video for an upcoming rap artist. But as a film, it fails on just about every level of decent filmmaking. There’s no story, there’s really no acting, bad dialogue throughout, bad execution, bad on all counts. If you’ve seen this movie and you were able to get something positive out of this movie, I commend you. But me personally, I honestly saw no redeeming qualities in it and I can’t wait to never watch this film again.

1/5 stars