Only God Forgives (2013)

Only God Forgives (R) - Review

"You wanna fight?"

A quiet man's brother is killed in Thailand after a run in with a local Police hero.  The disturbing crimes the brother committed justified his slaying in everyone's eyes except their mother, a brutally crass matron of crime.  When her other hitmen fail to extract revenge upon the stoic Cop, she cajoles her youngest son, the quiet man, to avenge the family and protect his own mother from the violence of Thai justice.

Director Nicolas Wendring Refn (Drive) pieces together an almost non narrative film here, less mainstream and much more surreal and violent than his previous hit.  There were glimpses of this in Drive, his first real attempt at reaching an American audience without sacrificing his aesthetic.  Here, the dark neon alleys, wall patterns, tiles and flowers illustrate Thailand beautifully, a twilight of modern neon at night, a bambooed rusticity during the day.  The soundtrack moodily drives the rage, while the characters do not.  Indeed, almost the entirety of the cast goes through the entire picture without moving a face muscle.  One expression is to be found, like models in a magazine ad.  The movie goes by like stills in a movie book, beautiful yet static, a picturebook flipping by.  Interesting as it is, it frustrates in equal measure, a bloody revenge picture devoid of emotion.

Long segments of time are spent on eyes and faces, unchanging and unflinching.  The lack of dialogue (Thai or English) comes to the forefront, and yet the over expressiveness of a silent picture is removed. Ryan Gosling is reunited with Refn here in almost a repeat of his unblinking character from Drive.  Yet instead of a professional with heart of gold here he is a quiet fighter with mommy issues (almost Hamlet's equal in violence, self doubt and psychological complexes).  The mother is the most expressive, swearing and flexing her strong Oedipus' issues as she screams for revenge.  There are sequences in a red room straight from Lynch's Twin Peaks, they all can't be fantasy sequences.  The stoic Police Captain is a surrogate father figure for Ryan (Gosling's real father, we are told, was murdered by him at the request of his mother), worshipped by his men who often are enraptured by their Chief's stunning Karaoke performances, helping him deliver cruel yet fair punishments to foreigners and locals alike, as untouchable in the ring as on the street (as anyone who crosses him finds).

The movie is an unflinching art house canvas that has been painted with vivid arterial sprays by a steady hand at the veins, but being almost devoid of narrative or depth, it becomes simply an exercise in style over substance, part fashion magazine part noir pulp dime novel. These actors are mannequins that move yet do not emote, placed into pretty situations (a karaoke bar, a torture scene in a perverted doll house, back alley restaurants filled with boiling frying pans) by a fetishistic visualist and then photographed simply for his own thrill, not the audience's yet still somehow unforgettable.

5.5 Bowls of Knives out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)