Yahoo News Is Too Old To Die Young the year's most divisive show?
Too Old to Die Young might be on your radar, but it probably isn't. The crime drama was released on Amazon Prime earlier this month (June 14) without fanfare, following a two-episode premiere at Cannes.
Unlike Jack Ryan or The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, which have both occupied prime spots on the platform's homepage, as well as TV adverts and posters plastered on bus stops around the country, Amazon's marketing strategy for this particular project has been… well, it hasn't.
You have to physically search for the series if you want to watch it, which requires knowing about it in the first place – so clearly keeping it somewhat submerged was a conscious decision taken by Amazon. But why?
Given the conversation around it, it's not hard to see why Amazon hasn't pushed the 13 hours of Too Old to Die Young harder. Despite the six-minute standing ovation it received at Cannes, the series is no crowd-pleaser.
It stars Whiplash's Miles Teller as Martin Jones, a Los Angeles cop who is mourning the death of his partner, and subsequently becomes a hitman for the criminal organisations and mobsters lurking in the city's underbelly.
It was created and written by Nicolas Refn and Ed Brubaker, and directed by Refn, who also headed up the divisive (though stylish and acclaimed) Drive, Bronson, The Neon Demon and Only God Forgives. He is, first and foremost, a film director – his only other TV credit is for an old episode of ITV's Marple.
That goes some way to explaining his latest project and his unwillingness, in many ways, to conform to what many expect from a television series. And it's that which critics have seized upon, resulting in a veritable pic 'n' mix of opinions, from high praise to utter disdain.
While the Guardian spends considerable time dissecting its "macabre and nauseating" elements, it concludes that it is "very well made and very watchable", a solid four stars out of five.
"It's exhausting and excruciating in equal measure, but it is also an endlessly fascinating addition to a great filmmaker's singular body of work," writes the Hindustan Times.
Collider's summation is that it is both "brilliant" and "tedious" – you might not have thought that effect possible, but it's one that Refn has succeeded in achieving.
It then goes on to applaud his "aesthetic skills", working to "spectacular effect". There is a memorable car chase across New Mexico which is enjoyable, in part due to the use of Barry Manilow's 'Mandy'.
"You can't help but smile," it muses, and while the series as a whole will "absolutely test the limits of what even the most artistically open-minded viewers can embrace on the small screen", it is "at times brilliant".
But while some have embraced Too Old to Die Young for what it is, others have ripped it apart.
"The chances are good that lay Amazon Prime subscribers... aren't going to enjoy what they find there – let alone understand what's going on," writes Den of Geek.
It goes on to say that "the execution largely fails" and "it amounts to nothing more than a dark and brooding series of images and characters that, though as beautiful as they are surreal, are mostly empty," before landing the final blow: "It's 13 streaming hours' worth of "white noise".
Rolling Stone's review also didn't pull any punches.
"Only God forgives this shitshow," was its conclusive thought, describing the series as "limping, baggy megillah [tome], which fails to justify its marathon-length running time as anything more than a self-satisfying, hardboiled-by-numbers folly".
It added: "This is not TV. It's self-parody. And it doesn’t take half a day's worth of viewing to figure out that maybe we're getting too old for this shit."
The series' treatment of its female characters and their subjection to eye-watering violence and brutality has also been lambasted.
Scanning the numerous reviews, the common denominator is Refn's refusal to stray from his vision, a vision that some have embraced, while others have rejected wholeheartedly. And despite the negative press, the gentleman is not for turning.
"The older I get, the more I see the act of creativity as some sort of channelling of what's inside me," he told iNews. "I'm less interested in other people's opinions and more in my own sense of experience."
In an interview with IndieWire, he also discussed what streaming platforms offer that the likes of the BBC and ITV can't: "Television is dead as a doornail – but streaming is like a whole new opportunity. And... it's a different concept, in a way, because it's uncontrollable.
"Episodic television was designed when television was once a week on an analog channel. Why do we still retain the same narrative and constructions from a time that doesn't even exist?"
It's hardly surprising then that the two episodes that aired at Cannes were numbers four and five –The Tower and The Fool – rather than the more traditional first two. He's simply not concerned about the conventions of narrative.
When Refn was asked how he'd feel if people drifted off before reaching the final episode, he said: "I would say, appreciate the experience. Thirteen hours is a long time in someone's life."
He added: "It's how my kids watch entertainment. They'll find something and they'll drop in. If it interests them, they'll stay.
"Plus it was a great way just to get into the heart of the show. I'm an entertainer, at the end of the day – I'm here to give you a spectacle."
He's certainly done that, but which side of the fence do you stand on?
Too Old to Die Young is streaming on Amazon Prime now.
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