Vintage Violence is less vintage violence and more of a vintage disappointment.
Written by Elizabeth Mulloy
Ukrainian-American director Eugene Kotlyarenko is no stranger to bringing the chaotic and ever-changing world of the internet to the silver screen. We’ve seen him blend the two almost perfectly in films such as Spree (2020) and The Code (2024). With his latest feature, Vintage Violence, he pushes that concept even further, combining the world of social media influencers with a story about a group of people who unknowingly become entangled with the Yakuza. Unfortunately, despite the intriguing premise, Vintage Violence is an excruciatingly painful viewing experience.
Disgraced social media influencer Carter (Cole Sprouse, Lisa Frankenstein) discovers a trove of rare vintage Levi denim jeans worth thousands of dollars. He travels to Tokyo to sell them with the help of a local woman, Izumi (Kiko Mizuhara, Helter Skelter). However, he soon finds himself caught between desire and betrayal as he is plunged into a black market turf war being led by the infamous Japanese Yakuza.
The first major problem with Vintage Violence is that there isn’t a single likable character. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having unlikable characters, as countless television series and films have been successfully built around them. However, when the characters are this ridiculously stupid, bland, and insufferable, the result becomes an incredibly painful viewing experience, one that nearly had me wishing for my own death.
The first character we meet is Carter, a disgraced influencer trying to find himself following the mysterious death of his partner. Cole Sprouse does his best to bring some depth to the character, but sadly, the script gives him almost nothing to work with. The story hints at a darker past for Carter, but ultimately, this subplot adds very little to the overall narrative. Instead, Carter is reduced to little more than a clueless American who finds himself caught up in a dangerous situation he never asked to be part of.
The next character we meet is Izumi, a jeans dealer who plans to steal from Carter so she can rescue herself, or, more accurately, her boyfriend from debt. Despite Kiko Mizuhara’s best efforts, Izumi is ultimately just a moronic asshole. She constantly presents herself as a victim of her circumstances, despite being one of the primary reasons those circumstances exist in the first place. Izumi repeatedly enables her boyfriend Hiro’s (Nijiro Murakami, Isle of Dogs) crippling gambling addiction, forcing her to constantly bail him out whenever his debts bring the
Yakuza knocking. Yet she refuses to leave her shitty boyfriend and then acts shocked and victimized whenever the consequences of their choices catch up with them. Hiro is even worse than Izumi, as he seems determined to make every stupid decision imaginable. He continuously digs himself deeper into debt, repeatedly screws over his creditors, and sabotages his own operations through a combination of immaturity, impatience, and sheer incompetence. Needless to say, I found myself constantly wishing for every single character to die in a horrible manner, if only so I could get some satisfaction from watching Darwin do his work. With the film’s title promising Vintage Violence, I was at least hoping that the bloodshed would provide some much-needed relief from its terrible characters.
Shockingly, for a film with “Violence” in the title, the violence itself is surprisingly tame and few and far between. There are maybe four set pieces at most that feature any meaningful violence or combat. I was expecting either elaborate fight sequences or, at the very least, the kind of brutal violence for which the Yakuza are notoriously known. Instead, the film rarely delivers on either front. The only extreme violence we see is someone cutting their finger off and another getting blown up, but hidden behind a tree.
Overall, Vintage Violence is a film that had a genuinely interesting premise but completely squanders it with a painfully bad script, insufferable characters, and shockingly tame violence. Eugene Kotlyarenko clearly understands how to capture the chaotic nature of the internet, but that alone cannot carry a film this poorly written. No matter how many phone screens and live streams are inserted into the film. I kept waiting for the story to finally pull me in, the characters to give me something to care about, or the violence to deliver the bloody mayhem promised by the title. Sadly, none of that ever happened. Instead, I was left sitting through an excruciating experience desperately hoping Darwin would finally do his work. Sadly, Vintage Violence is less vintage violence and more of a vintage disappointment.
Vintage Violence had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12th, and is currently seeking US and Canadian Distribution.
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