Copenhagen Cowboy

A multicultural collection of goons and a virginal avenger who brings balance into it. There are loads of Refn’s impressive trademarks that do not develop as you would want or expect, but rather as his wandering imagination dictates. The first three episodes try our patience. The moderately entertaining storylines of the Albanian and Chinese mafias are broken up only by absurd interludes with an aristocratic Danish family in a chateau. The butchers Miroslav and Dušan from Pusher kick off the fourth episode with a welcome move to Copenhagen, and back at the chateau we get some chauvinistic bizarreness with some refined black humor and Refn himself makes an appearance. In its meta-symbolism and unsatisfying finish, the series promises a comic-book tomorrow. If someone puts up the money for it. I’d be surprised. (28/01/2023)

I was cautiously enthusiastic for the first three episodes, enjoying the fact that for once Refn's poetics were serving a story that, while strange, was meaningful and grounded in reality. The three episodes that follow plummet into shit, if instead of 6 episodes it was maybe 10, I would have given up along the way. (06/01/2023)

Nicolas Winding Refn retraces his steps and through the mystical The Neon Demon, Only God Forgives, he makes his way back to Pusher. Copenhagen Cowboy follows Mia, a brothel madam pays her with a lucky coin (money brings good luck) to finally have a baby, only that she's stingy and won't give her the whole shebang. This sets in motion the bizarre wheels of an entire clockwork full of cheap girls, man-eating pigs and Asian and Eastern European gangsters. The popular Zlatko Burić also returns and his panhandling scene is chillingly creepy. Meta-commentaries, quotes from the masters to a fantastic soundtrack by Martinez & Julian Winding. Nothing for normal people :) (22/01/2023)