42 years after his 1979 feature debut Driller Killer and nearly 30 years after 1992’s Bad Lieutenant arguably became his creative peak, Abel Ferrara continues to produce new films. For his latest effort, we go to 2021’s Zeros and Ones.

American soldier JJ (Ethan Hawke) gets stationed in Rome. While there, he learns of a potential threat that could lead to the destruction of the Vatican.

JJ receives the assignment to work against the clock to stop this terrorist attack. As a complication, his anarchist twin brother Justin (also Hawke) might know crucial information about the danger, so JJ needs to find him.

When we last got new work from Ferrara, he creates 2019’s Siberia. To put it mildly, I didn’t care for that movie, I thought it offered a pretentious, incoherent mess.

If one wants to claim I just “don’t get” Ferrara, go for it, as my reviews will demonstrate ample evidence that his flicks don’t click with me. Even when Ferrara engages in material that seems up my alley – like 1993’s science-fiction/horror tale Body Snatchers - I can’t connect.

Based on the synopsis, though, I held out hope for Ones. After all, with a story about an urgent campaign to halt a violent terrorist threat, this one had to offer some excitement, right?

One would expect such a result, but one would anticipate incorrectly. Though Lionsgate sells this Blu-ray as a taut thriller, the actual film bears no connection to the one the publicity promises.

Heck, even the cover art deceives us, as the Hawke you see in the thumbnail to the left never appears in Ones. Instead, we get a greasy-haired, disheveled Hawke, one who looks much less like the “action hero” of the Blu-ray photo and more like a heroin addict.

I knew Ones would offer tough sledding when I saw that it includes an introduction from Hawke during the opening credits. No, this doesn’t give us comments from Hawke in character – instead, the actor summarizes the movie’s “plot” and praises Ferrara.

Perhaps the suits at the studio forced Ferrara to add these comments to ground the viewers before the borderline narrative-free film to come. Whatever the case, the intro seems bizarre – and more than a little self-serving, given how much it praises the director.

Ferrara strikes me as a filmmaker who creates willfully obtuse movies, one who wants to shove his own idiosyncrasies on the audiences and not bother with anything that ever feels comprehensible to anyone else.

At the risk of using a cliché, Ferrara’s movies often feel like “emperor’s new clothes” territory: they’re incoherent collections of pretensions that go nowhere, but they pretend to be “art” so a certain faction will claim they provide genius. can find brilliance in Ones. Maybe we can judge Ferrara’s intentional refusal to give the audience what it wants – ie, the action/thriller the promotional materials promise – as an attempt to deconstruct the genre and reveal its weaknesses/limitations.

Or maybe Ferrara is just a 70-year-old whose quirks have been indulged for so long that he no longer can tell the difference between coherent but unusual storytelling from nonsensical ramblings. Maybe Ferrara maintains a picture of how this film works in his head that connects dots he leaves unlinked for the rest of us.

All I can state for certain is that literally nothing about Ones succeeds. Perhaps in an effort to overcome the relentless tedium, Hawke overacts to an extreme, as he barks and gesticulates in unsuccessful efforts to create momentum and impact.

Composer Joe Delia follows suit, as his score gives us omnipresent “suspense music”. Perhaps Delia hopes that if the score conveys an implied sense of tension, the viewer will think actual drama occurs.

But it doesn’t. Instead, Ones delivers a dull, incoherent collection of pretensions in search of a story.

Footnote: Hawke appears as himself again during the end credits. He admits Ferrara's "script" was incomprehensible and then sort of kind of attempts to explain what we just saw.

Expect Hawke mostly babbles incoherently and tries to mind-screw us with meta comments. Yikes.

Zeros and Ones appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though ugly, the image appeared to replicate the source as intended.

I guess. Apparently shot on 16mm stock, Ones offered a murky mess, so it became difficult to really judge much of anything.

Sharpness felt inconsistent. While some shots offered positive clarity, plenty of others seemed soft and indistinct.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and I saw no signs of edge haloes. Tons of grain appeared – due to that apparent 16mm stock, naturally – but no obvious print flaws manifested themselves.

Colors leaned toward heavy orange/amber or teal, though other hues cropped up at times as well. All looked overcranked and unappealing, but again, this appeared to be intentional.

Blacks seemed inky and dull, while shadows were murky and moderately impenetrable. I gave the image a “C” because I thought it likely reproduced the movie as shot, but one needs to expect an unpleasant viewing experience.

Though not great, at least the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack fared better. Don’t expect a lot of fireworks from the soundscape, however, as it usually remained modest in scope.

A few louder scenes – like some explosions – broadened the mix in an active manner, and street scenes added decent ambience. The score used the five channels in the most consistent manner, though, as the music popped up in the various speakers through most of the film.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that appeared concise and intelligible. Music showed nice range and warmth as well.

As noted, effects lacked a lot to do through much of the movie, but they remained accurate and packed good low-end when appropriate. Little here impressed, but the soundtrack seemed more than adequate for this sluggish narrative.

The disc includes the movie’s trailer and no other extras.

If you did not realize Zeros and Ones came from a veteran director, you would assume a young film student shot it over the weekend with some buddies. Rambling, incoherent and just plain boring, this becomes a virtually unwatchable movie. The Blu-ray brings ugly but accurate visuals along with adequate audio and no real bonus materials. I’ve seen worse movies than this – but not many.