Too Old to Die Young

Nicolas Winding Refn’s new Amazon series, Too Old to Die Young, is a lot of things, many of which are equally maddening and fascinating. It takes just a few minutes into the first episode to realize how the show is going handle the passage of time, which proves to be one of the most telling things about the entire series.

Too Old to Die Young is very deliberately paced. Much of the show contains extremely long takes, requiring the viewer to slowly take in a setting and watch the action (which can be absent, sparse, or intense, depending on the scene) unfold. This style of pacing cannot be emphasized enough when discussing this show, because even for the most diehard Refn fans, Too Old to Die Young is bound to test the patience of anyone who watches it. I don’t have any insight into the terms that Amazon and Refn agreed on for this show, but it feels like Amazon gave Refn a cap budget and said, “Fuck it, do whatever you want.” And he did. And it is absolutely insane.

The show’s expansive narrative is far too intricate, frustrating, and unsettling to fully explain here. Thoroughly breaking down each episode of the show, which range from 31 to 96 minutes long, would be a vexing exercise in criticism. But, to carefully surmise:

Initially, the show appears to be about a quiet, steely LAPD Deputy named Martin (Miles Teller). Martin doesn’t say much, instead choosing to stand in the background as his more confident (and, it turns out, emotionally terrifying) partner, Larry (Lance Gross), takes lead on their calls. When he’s not on the job, we start to get insight into Martin’s personal life. He’s dating a much younger woman, Janey (Nell Tiger Free), whom he met when he responded to a call of Janey’s mother dying by suicide. Janey introduces Martin to her rich creep billionaire father (William Baldwin), who enjoys toying with Martin for the hell of it.

Babs Olusanmokun as Damien

A sudden act of violence helps introduce us to more people in Martin’s world, including the unnervingly reserved Damien (Babs Olusanmokun), a local crime boss who Martin and Larry carry out hits for. So, yeah, Martin and Larry aren’t just dirty cops, they are absolutely filthy with violence, extortion, threats of sexual assault – you name it. In fact, no one in Too Old to Die Young is good. Every character who occupies this show is criminally flawed, ranging from shockingly narcissistic to uncommonly ferocious.

Before the events of Episode 1, Martin and Larry carried out a hit on a Mexican cartel boss named Magdalena, but it is unclear if Martin or Larry actually killed her (this is a crucial detail for later in the show). Episode 2 (by far the show’s most patience-testing chapter) is spent almost exclusively with Magdalena’s son, Jesus (Augusto Aguilera), who is seeking revenge for his mother’s death, while also taking over his mother’s cocaine empire with savage might.

Jesus is a momma’s boy psychopath with very deep-seated and disturbing desires that only his eventual wife, Yaritza (Cristina Rodlo), seem to understand. Yaritza, in fact, proves to the show’s most complex and mesmerizing character. She’s far more than just the loyal cartel wife archetype, as she spends portions of the show moonlighting as a vicious assassin called The High Priestess of Death. Jesus and Yaritza’s collective cold, intelligent, and calculating demeanors make Damien’s personality look like that of a Disney character. There are simply no limits to the depravity of any of these people.

Augusto Aguilera and Cristina Rodlo as Jesus and Yaritza, respectively

Despite the deliberately slow pacing of each episode (more on that in a bit), Too Old to Die Young has no problem passing healthy amounts of time between episodes. When Episode 3 begins, Martin has graduated from a uniformed deputy to a plain clothes detective, working for an outrageously un-PC lieutenant (Hart Bochner; Ellis from Die Hard!). With Martin’s quiet bloodlust apparently unfulfilled by his job as a detective for the LAPD and hit man for Damien, Martin links up with Diana (Jena Malone) an LA, new-age healer type who helps parents seek final revenge toward pedophiles who have abused their children. If a parent expresses interest in vengeance, Diana calls her go-to hitman, Viggo (John Hawkes), and/or Martin to carry out the hit.

Whew. That may seem like a lot, but I’ve barely dug in. And please, let me be clear, if this crude plot description sounds like the show turns into Jesus hunting Martin down for revenge, it is far more involved than that. That is an aspect of the story, but Refn is more concerned with how these people live their lives, and the impact of their acts, rather than the acts themselves.

Every actor in the show appears to be performing exactly how Refn wants them to, and they all deliver uniquely transfixing work. Most of these characters are, as mentioned, quiet, observing, cold as ice, oddly funny, and grotesquely violent. As Martin, Miles Teller delivers a performance that rivals his great work in Whiplash, even though Martin is the anthesis of Teller’s Whiplash character. I wouldn’t have assumed that Teller could fill the emotionless, bleak demeanor of a Refn leading man so effortlessly (as Ryan Gosling has proven to do), but Teller does, with careful consideration into every word he utters and action he takes. Jena Malone seems destined to play in any world Refn creates, William Baldwin has an absolute blast chewing the ever-loving shit out of every scene he’s in, and Babs Olusanmokun and Augusto Aguilera each display their detached psychopathic pathos perfectly.

Cristina Rodlo as Yaritza

But the performance highlight is Cristina Rodlo, who is utterly terrifying and captivating as Yaritza. Yaritza barely speaks in the show, but her face, which seems stuck on an expression that could be interpreted as welcoming, deadly, mesmerizing, or all three at the same time, is impossible to look away from. I always strived to know more about Yaritza and was thankful that Refn gave her more to do in the show’s later episodes, which is where Too Old to Die Young thrives.

It feels appropriate to circle back to the show’s style, because if Too Old to Die Young is to garner criticism outside of its gruesome violence and devilishly un-woke politics, it would be that the show, more so than anything Refn has done, is style over substance. And that criticism isn’t necessarily wrong. Nicholas Winding Refn is obsessed with style, and how it can inform narrative. His gorgeous neon lighting, painstakingly long zoom and pan shots, harshly out-of-focus camera, and electronic music by Cliff Martinez are all on full display here, which will, to mention yet again, test the patience of even the most loyal Refn fans.

I can, however, confidently admit that Too Old to Die Young is the best-looking, most intricately shot television show I have ever seen. Almost every single composition is visually breathtaking, even if the shot is held for too long, or features something violent. Apparently, Refn spent nearly nine months filming this season, and that shows here. I’d like to think that a lot of that shooting schedule was spent ensuring that every single aspect of each shot was perfect. Because ultimately, every light is placed precisely where it needs to be, and every camera movement reveals exactly what it intends to reveal, in however much time it deems necessary. I did get occasionally bored by how slowly the narrative moved, but I never tired of how flawless everything looked. Darius Khondji and Diego García, who have solo cinematography credit on a few episodes each, and share co credit on Episodes 2 and 5, deserve endless praise for their work here.

A fantastic shot from Episode 5, The Fool

In terms of pacing, it’s hard for me to be objectively critical of something a director is doing with such intention. Refn wants the show to be paced this way. He wants to test our patience, to push the limits of what we accept and what we’re willing to sit through. Refn is a proud disruptor; he wears the badge of enfant terrible with honor. Refn has never been concerned with convention, but a regular feature film has convention automatically built into it, as most films are expected to be around two hours long (give or take). But with online streaming, runtime is not an issue. Refn can let things play out as for long as he wants them to, and he really wants to hold on shots here. I can’t say I universally accept Refn’s pace of the show (it took me three separate viewings to make it through Episode 2, the show’s longest chapter), but I absolutely respect it.

The amount of violence in the show is bound to become infamous, but this being Refn, he seems to enjoy how macabre this material is, and is not at all concerned with the audience potentially rejecting it.

Noting that, I’ll leave you with a story. In 2016, I was lucky enough to attend the premiere of Refn’s latest feature film, The Neon Demon, with my friend Nick. The cast and crew were there, Refn introduced the movie, Keanu Reeves excitedly yelled, “YEAH! NEON DEMON!” right as the movie started – it was awesome. But toward the end of the film, right as Sarah (Abbey Lee) cleans up after Gigi (Bella Heathcote), a guy sitting directly two rows ahead of us started losing it. He was sitting in the aisle seat and started moving his body like he was going to be sick. He dry heaved once, tried to get up to leave, but then sat back down and just kept dry heaving. We really thought he was going to be sick right there in the theater. Thankfully, he held it together.

The next day, Nick and I went to an album signing Refn and Cliff Martinez were doing for The Neon Demon soundtrack. Nick, Neon Demon vinyl in hand, approached Refn and Martinez and told them the story about the guy almost puking at the premiere. When Nick was done, Refn put his Sharpie down and said, “Oh man, he should’ve puked. It would’ve been so great if he puked in the theater. Everyone should have puked. That would have made such a great story.”

That’s Nicolas Winding Refn. If you brave Too Old to Die Young, know that you’re stepping into the mindset of an artist who is so unconcerned with how his art is received, he doesn’t care if it makes his audience sick or not. For better or worse, Too Old to Die Young is full-on Refn. No convention, no constraints; it’s gloves-off, unapologetic filmmaking that will likely test any boundaries you have with moving content. A-

Favorite Episode: Easily Episode 5, The Fool. This is one of the chapters Refn screened at Cannes, and it is a perfect, incredibly disturbing, 75-minute bottle episode of television. Once you make it to this point in the series, the rest of the show moves a little easier.

Least Favorite Episode: As mentioned, Episode 2, The Lovers. It’s simply too long (96 minutes) and sparse. Though everything that happens in this episode is essential to the show’s overall narrative later on.

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