Harmony Korine has always been a provocateur, so it’s hardly surprising that his latest film, Aggro Dr1ft, is unconventional.

The 80-minute feature is filmed entirely in infrared thermal imaging, which means the production is wall-to-wall vibrant reds, yellows, blues, and neon greens.

It’s a dazzling visual spectacle that radically alters the affect of the performances and the mise-en-scene. Certain details, like facial features, hair, skin, and wardrobe are less clear; the eye naturally shifts focus to take note of the changing hot spots or cold spots.

As a result, the film becomes more of an interactive experience: there’s a temptation to lean in or look more closely at the screen to decipher the shifting nature of the colours.

This is amplified by the use of 3D, AI, and VFX, which renders certain aspects of the production smoother, animated, and – yes – more artificial. This is most evident in the giant mythival devil creature that occasionally looms over protagonist Bo (Jordi Molla), as well as the horns that occasionally appear on characters’ masks or the flickering serpent’s tongue that protrudes from Zion (Travis Scott)’s mouth. At other (often random) points, characters bodies and the furniture is slowly covered in a crawling cybernetic metal, which lends the Miami-filmed and set production a retro futuristic noir vibe.

These are all fascinating visual details that occupy the audience’s attention…at least at the start of the film, when the unconventional nature of Aggro Dr1ft is still novel.

The biggest issue with Korine’s latest is not the unconventional visuals of the film; it is the incredibly rote, shallow narrative. The plot is bare bones: the film follows Bo, the world’s (self-proclaimed) greatest assassin, as he waxes philosophically about his job. He imparts life lessons to his second-in-command, Zion, and he spends time standing around strip clubs and on yachts rather go home to his clingy wife and loving children.

And occasionally, he shoots someone.

There’s a suggestion in their dialogues that Bo suspects Zion will betray him and there are recurring scenes of Bo’s boastful adversary, Tito, who he inevitably confronts at film’s end. Apart from that, however, the film is little more than a series of scenes set at the trailer park, on the yacht, at home, or in Bo’s convertible.

Then there’s the repetitive dialogue (much of it improvised), which serves to make the mundane, innocuous scenarios all the more exhausting. Hearing Bo’s wife endlessly repeat that she misses him and wants him to come home or how Tito wants the sex workers and/women he’s holding hostage in his mansion to dance only serves to make the film a more exhausting experience. (Admittedly Tito’s tendency to hump his machete is an unexpected source of unintentional laughter).

The result: what begins as a novel experiment quickly becomes a tired, boring experience because the film has nothing interesting to say or explore. Aggro Dr1ft is a visual feast that eventually becomes overwhelming, a fleeting mélange of morphing colours that fail to maintain interest. In short form this could have been a fascinating, but as a semi-narrative feature, the film feels interminable.

Removed from the way that audiences consume a conventional film, Aggro Dr1ft makes sense: Korine’s production company, EDGLRD, is purportedly working on interactive games. There’s even speculation that Aggro Dr1ft is the start of a larger multi-platform initiative.

Ultimately this is avant-garde, countercultural cinema that was never intended to appeal to the masses. As an artistic experiment, it’s certainly innovative. As a live-action film, however, Aggro Dr1ft is definitely struggle to find an audience; it’s simply too weird, too off-putting, and, yes, too boring to go mainstream.

Look for this one to find a small, but dedicated niche audience en route to becoming a cult film. For everyone else, there’s a curiosity factor, but that’s not enough to warrant a recommendation.