AGGRO DR1FT, Harmony Korine and Travis Scott’s infrared-shot gamer nightmare movie, is a boring mess, but it is undeniably fascinating. In theaters now.
This review of AGGRO DR1FT was originally published after its screening at the 2023 New York Film Festival. It has been updated and republished for the film’s limited theatrical run.
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 DR1FT, from Spring Breakers and 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 strange and mostly eventless — 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 DR1FT follows BO (Jordi Mollà), a middle-aged man who loves his wife and children deeply. He’s also the world’s greatest assassin. He tells the audience both of these things directly, via omnipresent voice-over narration. The majority of the movie has BO wandering aimlessly around Florida from one meeting to the next. The encounters are only linked by his narration, which seems related to the plot only about half of 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. More than once we see several uninterrupted seconds of The Beast pelvic thrusting while holding his sword and yelling, only for BO to cut in with narration telling us how terrifying The Beats is.
