Refn is just screwing with everyone at this point. Like, the most reasonable explanation as to why this mess is the way that it is, is that he's simply taking the piss here. Either that or he's finally lost his mind completely after sitting for so long in an ego-inflating echo chamber of praise from a blindly loyal fanbase comprised of people so deluded they're convinced that the total non-storytelling found here is another example of his filmmaking brilliance. Whatever the case, Copenhagen Cowboy is terrible. For roughly 5 hours the Drive director engages in all his established little fetishes and quirks with no real regard for forming a legitimate narrative, direction, or point for the ensuing six episodes until the briefest hint of a focus-establishing conflict begins to arise in its final moments. Unfortunately, its last-second arrival means that any hope of seeing a conclusion lies with a potential second season that as of right now doesn't seem likely of ever being ordered (not that this deserves one). Essentially, it's looking like Too Old to Die Young all over again, but at least that was interesting. After a painfully dull start, you can begin to notice the barest signs of a pulse in its latter half as that's when the action starts to pick up. It doesn't make the material any more enjoyable, however. Something about the content in this feels sick and wrong. Not because of stuff like the director's typical graphic sexuality or gruesome brutality either. It's actually rather tame in both of those departments. What violence there is comes off as unintentionally silly and ridiculous as Refn tries to portray the tiny, thin as a rail Angela Bundalovic as some kind of kung fu master capable of taking out much larger men in poorly choreographed fight sequences. It's one of the many aspects of Copenhagen Cowboy that's just plain goofy, but what's weird is that it feels like none of this was played in an appropriate tongue-in-cheek manner. So much of what happens here is legitimately dumb to the degree where you may get a sense of second-hand embarrassment when you realize that Refn is apparently trying to be serious with it. Not even his penchant for visual flair shines through. His neon tones clash unpleasantly with the rundown backgrounds creating a viewing experience that's ugly, as well as gross. Thematically it's the same "all men are bad and do nothing but hurt women, except me though because I made this!" dreck every self-important, wannabe progressive white man who's received a little bit of critical acclaim seems to make at some point or another these days (i.e. Alex Garland). After the credits rolled on the final episode, all I was left with other than a bad taste in my mouth was the question of how after years of producing seemingly nothing but celebrated works before 2013 Refn could have been responsible for this? All I've watched beforehand were two of his other more divisive offerings, Neon Demon and Too Old to Die Young, so it appears I'm going to need to dive back into his pre-Only God Forgives/fall from grace filmography to uncover exactly how we got here. It's time to go down the Refn rabbit hole it seems. In the meantime, I hope the man stops trying to make series and goes back feature-length films, because they clearly aren't his strong suit.