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PHOTO COURTESY OF FILMDISTRICT
Violence has been redefined in Nicholas Winding Refn’s latest film, Only God Forgives, a materialized nightmare of half-finished scenes set to a harrowing score.
Ryan Gosling is Julian, an American in Bangkok who owns a gym with his brother, serving as a front for a drug smuggling operation, until one night his brother is murdered. Gosling plays his usual shtick, though it’s more false bravado and less the silent guardian from his and Refn’s previous collaboration, Drive, and Refn seems content on not challenging him.
Kristin Scott Thomas is Julian’s mother, Crystal, who arrives to command her living son to avenge her newly deceased one. She fits in this garish world, an over-thetop, borderline cartoonish, evil mother that would be appalling in any other context. Vithaya Pansringarm plays Lieutenant Chang, a renegade policeman, and the man Gosling is tasked to take his revenge against. He is an apparition who fuels this nightmare, literally pulling a katana out of thin air.
There is very little character development, save for the final fifteen minutes, as these characters are not much more than archetypal vessels for Refn’s gore. At a brisk ninety minutes, the film would have benefitted from being an additional ten to twenty minutes longer; giving these characters more flesh to their barebones persona.
It is clear Gosling only seeks revenge for his deceased brother, the focal point of the film, at the behest of his mother, but why does he take orders from such a terrible person? “Because she’s my mother,” Gosling opines to a character who dared to pose that query, yet there’s something more there, something never fully developed. The foil to this plot, the aforementioned Lieutenant Chang, seems as immoral as the criminals he apprehends, so what drives his moral compass? Why does he lower himself to the level of thugs, as a man supposedly hired to uphold the law?
Only God Forgives is beautiful to look at, but any attempt to peel back its layers to discover something more results in only finding rotting flesh. Refn is the inmate running the asylum, a sadist left in charge of making a film.
Refn has an amazing visual eye, but he’s not much of a storyteller. This is an aesthetically pleasing film, but there is very little reason given for why these characters decide to do what they do, especially a crucial moment that sets off the entire action of the rest of the film. There’s a plot, but no explanation, things sort of just happen.
After the release of Drive, a pensive masterpiece, one would expect a worthy successor, but that is not the case here with Only God Forgives, essentially a bad dream you cannot wake up from.
Though it is a decent film, perhaps not as bad as some make it out to be, it is an unfortunate disappointment, and bound to be one of the most polarizing films of the year.
Source:
http://www.unlvrebelyell.com/2013/07/22/gosling-goes-dark/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gosling-goes-dark