I'm a fan of Refn's last few movies but I never worshiped at the altar of Drive. The way in which that film was at odds with itself seemed considerably less interesting to me than it did to others around here. But there's a weird integrity to the pared-down indulgence of Only God Forgives that plays to the director's strengths. Like Rex Reed and domino say, this film is about nothing beyond its surfaces -- though I'm not sure that's the problem they claim it is. The film manages to be at one and the same time 100% an exploitation picture and 100% an art film. And it's held together from moment to moment by the sheer force of atmosphere alone, which is no small achievement for any director.
Refn steals music, sound and picture ideas from Lynch, Kubrick and even Michael Mann, but he does so pretty skillfully and in the service of evoking similarly dark moods and emotions -- even if they are more or less skin deep in Only God Forgives. To borrow from one's masters this well is also a worthy thing in itself, not unlike, for example, the incorporation of Kiarostami influences in Once Upon A Time In Anatolia.
The narrative is flimsy and it's obviously a retroactive excuse for combining stuff Refn wanted to see together in a film -- Gosling, kickboxing, sword fights, sex tourism, neon, abstract 2001 hallways that end in Lost Highway doorways of darkness. Those upset that Refn is somehow misrepresenting Thailand couldn't be more correct and are missing the point entirely. That's his modus operandi when it comes to making any film -- pick a setting that has a bunch of elements he can sufficiently embellish and abstract, then fetishsize/romanticize/aestheticize the shizzle out of those things to the exclusion of everything else.
As for Kristin Scott Thomas' performance being unintentionally hammy, one-note, OTT or so-bad-it's-good funny -- she's obviously doing that stuff on purpose at the behest of the director. Her character is in the strange position of being the most extreme and ruthless one in the already half-mad world of the movie. If we weren't continually surprised by how far she's willing to go at any given moment, there's no movie. She's also pretty deliberately the (darkly) comic relief. I don't know what audience Rex Reed saw the film with (there's some question as to whether he actually watches all the films he reviews), but the laughter at Scott Thomas' lines where I saw it was hardly derisive and we could hardly wait for her next monologue.
In fact, for there not being much in the way of conventional character or drama, I did find myself strangely interested in the quirks and plights of the three major characters. Aside from Thomas' twisted incestuous drug boss matriarch, there's Gosling's passive masochistic momma's boy and Vithaya Pansringarm's disarmingly deadly martial arts cop -- the sort of little grey man of asskicking who you'd never size up on the street as the one who's going to beat everyone down all at once and then gut their ghosts for good measure.
Btw, for anyone who can't find this in a theater and rents it on demand, if you don't have a great surround set-up, I'd say go with headphones.
Source:
http://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12525&p=442447