Refn tries to turn his protagonist into a Christ figure at the climax, which might have worked better if the rest of the film weren’t an endless slog of mud, blood, and graphic disembowelment.

Mikkelsen verifies that, even without saying a word, he's an unnervingly unhinged presence.

If only the pieces added up to an experience that sticks and that didn't finally succumb to a shrug of entropy.

Though gorgeously shot in Scotland to capture hazy and bleak landscapes of green mountains and dense forests, the film’s beauty hardly compensates for its inaccessible tone.