Time To Meet The Devil.…Director Nicholas Winding Refn follow up to 2011's sleeper hit Drive, Refn teams up with Ryan Gosling once again taking us into the underground but instead of L.A. we are taken on a journey half way across the world into Bangkok where things are done a lot differently when it comes to the criminal underworld.
Ryan Gosling takes on the role of another stoic character (Julian) who doesn’t have much to say, but lets his facial expressions do the talking(now where have we seen that before).
Only God forgives is one of those types of movies that come along every so often that leaves you with more questions then answers, sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes its not, but Only God Forgives seems to be a bit of both to me. on one hand the set designs, camera work, soundtrack Kristen Scott Thomas are all great, but the pacing, lack of a real story, Stoic Ryan Gosling, no real likable characters, and Refn’s carelessness of character development help bring the movie down.
This movie is not for mainstream audiences(actually i don’t know what audience this film is for), which in some cases is a good thing, weather you are a arthouse or general movie fan this movie really make one question just how much of a film fan they truly are because this is a very pretentious movie with awkward pauses and overdone Ryan Gosling staring scenes of him either looking at other characters or his hands through out the movie.
I don’t want to be over critical of the film because for every con there are some pros and vise versa, Kristen Scott Thomas steals the movie as the evil mother who appears to be the reason why both Julian and Billy were the way they were. in one scene where she puts down Gosling in front of his girlfriend lets the viewer into just what kind of relationship she had with her boys, how she touches Gosling and comments about how Billy is much bigger then Julian. I had no problem with that topic(some might) but if Refn would’ve explored this more then maybe I would’ve felt more for Gosling’s character.
The themes that Refn does explore are more philosophical and religious hence the title, The character Chang seems almost other worldly with how he almost appears and in one scene disappears into thin air. I read that Refn said that Chang might be the reincarnation of the character One Eye from his previous film Valhalla Rising (which I have yet to see) and on set Refn would whisper to Vithaya Pansringarm that he is god, In most of his scenes you can kind of see the god like connection but to normal movie viewers these types of things would fly over your head.
Probably one of the better scenes in the movie is the fight scene between Julian and Chang, If there was a better build up to it then it really would’ve been the stand out scene of the film but most of the cons really do take away from the pros this scene will almost be forgotten, also its not really a fight rather a beatdown by one to the other.
Nicholas Winding Refn is one of the better directors out today, but I hope that he will reign in some of the pretentious ways of his filmmaking because I don’t know If viewers will continue to sit threw more of his films that are like Only God forgives.
If you are a fan of the over stylized , pretentious, methodical pace films then this is the film for you. i’m really on the fence with this film, but i can say i won’t be giving this another watch again anytime soon.
Only God Forgives was one of my most anticipated films of 2013 and after seeing the trailers for it and because I am Nicholas Winding Refn, Ryan Gosling fans and really wanted to see Kristen Scott Thomas turn here which I do believe was Academy Award nomination worthy I was really let down with what this film turned out to be, it’s not a terrible movie but its not a good movie either.
