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

It’s rare to see a movie that challenges basic ideas about how films are made or what they should look like. It’s even rarer to see a movie in that mode that’s actually enjoyable. AGGRO DR1FTThe new film from Spring BreaksYou can also find out more about the following: The Beach Bum director Harmony Korine, made in collaboration with rapper and music producer Travis Scott, certainly doesn’t look like any kind of conventional movie, but it also isn’t an exception to the rule. It’s a strange, mostly boring movie that some viewers will probably jump ship on after five minutes or less. But it’s also utterly fascinating in the rare moments when it’s actually coherent.

AGGRO 1FT follows BO (Jordi Mollà), a middle-aged man who loves his wife and children deeply. He’s also the world’s greatest assassin. Both of these facts are told to the audience directly by the omnipresent narration. BO spends the bulk of the movie wandering around Florida, from one meeting or another. Only his narration seems to link the events, and it only happens about half the time. The plot, such as it exists, is about BO’s attempt to assassinate The Beast, a demonic villain with giant wings who has two katanas and hangs out with scantily clad women who he sometimes keeps in cages.

It isn’t really clear what The Beast did to earn the contract put on his head, but at one point, he stands between two women in bikinis and chants, “Dance, bitch. Dance, bitch” over and over again until the scene finally cuts and BO’s narration says, “There’s magic in this brutality.” I can’t say what that means for sure, but I can say that Korine seems to believe it’s true, and also that it’s exactly in keeping with the tone of the rest of the movie. BO has cut away from the uninterrupted scenes of The Beast holding his sword, yelling while pelvic thrusting and repeatedly slapping The Beast’s thighs.

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BO rolls around southern Florida buying sniper rifles, telling the audience to be careful of strippers because if you stare into their eyes for too long, you’ll lose your soul, and meeting with other assassins, including Travis Scott’s character, Zion, who BO seems to take under his wing. After every short trip, BO returns home to find his wife waiting for him in bed, while she talks over the phone about how much he’s missed and that she wants to have some sex.

The most fascinating thing about all of this is that it’s actually a true story. AGGRO 1FT is accidentally a more insightful look at an incel’s fantasies than most of the movies that actually attempt to portray incel life.

BO, although a schlub at times, has many things going for him. He loves his family and will do whatever it takes to keep them safe. In a brutal and horrifying world, he also sees the evil in everything. Just so happens that it looks like a demon with a mask holding samurai sabers. His wife is perfect and must be protected, but strippers are evil sirens who exist to steal men’s souls.

All this performative hyper-masculinity feels like it’s been filtered through the lens of a 14-year-old boy screaming on Xbox Live over a game of Modern Warfare 2.. Women are to be kept safe, not talked to. The movie doesn’t create a coherent ideology, but it’s clear BO’s worldview is inherently self-righteous, and the world of the movie contorts itself around justifying him.

What’s unique about AGGRO 1FTThe most shocking thing is how brazenly all of these things are presented, with no irony and sarcasm. Like most of the movie, though, it’s fascinating to think about, but an absolute slog to actually watch.

It’s the most simple and interesting thing you can do. AGGRO 1FTThe movie is unique in its look: shot entirely using an infrared-only camera with neon colors that invert, changing characters from bright red with no features to blue with no features, it’s a film with something special. These aren’t entirely successful choices — the movie often just looks like an ugly mess of colors. But it’s a style that a different, more carefully conceived and directed movie could use well. The blocky neon vagueness of the bright colors often used in infrared photography also grants space to the movie’s best and most interesting feature: shifting illustrations that show up inside of the colors.

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The ink illustrations appear when a character (such as the sky) goes all the way to a dark red color. They can be demon heads, machine parts or anything else Scott and Korine thought was cool. The meaning of these moments can be quite profound, as in the case when BO is committing a brutal act of violence and a huge demon monster appears. This seems to represent his image. These illustrations are seen throughout the film, but especially during the second half. They feel underdeveloped and a waste of an excellent stylistic choice.

You might think that the alleged flaws of this system are not worth mentioning. AGGRO 1FTIt is entertaining, or at the very least exciting. This is absolutely not the case. For all the movie’s talk about demons and assassinations, most of the movie’s nearly 90-minute runtime is taken up by characters driving from place to place, awkwardly standing around, or walking around southern Florida.

Reviewing a product is easy. AGGRO 1FTKorine is winning. It’s defiantly non-traditional and deliberately provocative. I can’t say that the movie really made me mad, but I can say I’m happy to let Harmony Korine win. He’s earned it;AGGRO 1FTThe movie is ridiculous and obtuse. It’s nearly impossible to tell whether any moment of the movie is entirely a joke or entirely sincere — it’s called AGGRO 1FT, for God’s sake. It’s a meaningless phrase, rendered in all capital letters with a 1 standing in for an I; for all we know, it might as well be Travis Scott’s Gamertag. The movie, however, is much more. It’s as clear a depiction of a certain kind of distinctly male-coded interior life as I’ve ever seen, and there is value to making that in such a weirdly unfiltered way. AGGRO 1FT isn’t an enjoyable or particularly well-made movie, but it is the movie I’ve thought about most this year. For better or worse, that’s worth something.

AGGRO 1FTThe film was screened in New York and Toronto, but a release date is not yet known.