‘He Bled Neon’ Review: Joe Cole and Rita Ora Trudge Through a Clichéd, Poseur Crime Story

The director Drew Kirsch got his start in music videos, perhaps most notably as the mastermind (or, something mind) behind Taylor Swift’s celebrity-filled “You Need to Calm Down” video. But like David Fincher and plenty of others before him, Kirsch had his sights on leaving the short-form, for-hire market and making a feature film of his own. He’s done just that with He Bled Neon, which premiered at SXSW.

Kirsch is to be commended for making a leap that few ever do. And his debut feature certainly has a lot of tailoring, with its propulsive music, saturated color, and picturesquely grimy locations — New Mexico stands in for the seedier corners of Las Vegas sprawl. Kirsch is also smart enough to maintain a modest scale: He Bled Neon is a small revenge movie, economical in its reach. This isn’t an auteur project; Kirsch directs a script by Tim Cairo and Jake Gibson,…