ONLY GOD FORGIVES

Nicolas Winding Refn's divisive follow up to Drive is a curious, but problematic picture. Like Drive, its basic plot line is trashy pulp, and I mean that as praise. But what makes Only God Forgives interesting is that it seems to emanate art-house nous when at its core it is a seedy, violent revenge movie. Refn is a hugely interesting film maker but Only God Forgives, however stylish, is flawed and ultimately empty.

Julian (Ryan Gosling) runs a boxing club in Bankok with his brother Billy (Tom Burke) as a front for his family's lucrative drug operation. When Billy is arrested and killed for the rape and murder of a young girl, their mother Crystal (Kristen Scott Thomas) hastily arrives to oversee revenge. On the side of the law, they are pitted against Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), a ruthless detective whose methods of interrogation and justice are as brutal and merciless as the criminals he is pursuing.

Only God Forgives is a neon drenched fever dream unfolding with a fascinating initial 20 minutes that is virtually dialogue free. It is also terrifically violent. As it descends into the madness of a quid pro quo revenge flick, it features a protracted, almost unwatchable torture sequence, made all the more unbearable by the blankness of the characters involved. It's mean and nasty and features the grimmest set piece since Kill List's kitchen table encounter.

However the real problems arise when it comes to the characters, or rather the lack thereof. Stoicism becomes a practiced art form as Gosling and Pansringarm forgo depth in favour of machine-like automaton brutality.  We learn things about Gosling's back story in passing, through reference and insinuation, but we know nothing of him as a character. In fact Gosling himself has likened Julian to an avatar. A vehicle through which to experience the movie. The other characters lurk on the periphery, drifting in and out of the feint story with an economy of dialogue. The only one who cuts loose to any degree is Kristen Scott Thomas's feral mother, Crystal, abusing every human being she comes into contact with and saddling Julian with some deranged Oedipal blackmail.

The police officer,  Chang,  dispenses brutal street justice, answering to no one, and then unwinds by singing ballads in a karaoke bar as the only mitigation to his ferocity. It brings to mind Chow Yun Fat's melancholy, clarinet playing Inspector Tequila from John Woo's action masterpiece Hard Boiled, smooth jazz-ing his guilt away. But that's as close as we get to any humanity from Chang. Another stoic hero/villain in a movie awash with them.

That's not to say Only God Forgives is without merit. It's hard nosed and bleak, and much like Drive it's stylish and assured.  And when Julian and Chang face each other down at the gym, the resultant pummelling is a mesmerising, bone crunching punch up straight out of a top drawer martial arts movie.

Ultimately even the loose characters could be overlooked in the bigger scheme of things for the sake of its art and general non-verbal nature, were it not for the deeply unsatisfying ending. Meaning that while Only God Forgives is undeniably interesting, its sum total is a film that's very light on both plot and character. Without one concession to the audience, giving us some closure, we're not left with very much at the end of the movie. Only God Forgives' stylish pomp offers only a confounding glimpse at what might have been a great film, but is instead a disappointing one.

IMDB: Only God Forgives

by Randy Ortiz