Only God Forgives

2013 • 89 minutes

About this movie

Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn (DRIVE) are back with this visionary Bangkok-set thriller. Kingpin Julian (Gosling) avenges his brother's killer, while a mysterious, unhinged policeman follows his every move.

Ratings and reviews

after seeing valhalla rising and drive, I thought we might have a cool new director on the block. But God Only Forgives must be the biggest miss out there. Long periods of no sound, even longer periods of no plot. Smash cuts that focus on nothing. Washed out colors, but not stylish like Drive - it's more like unfinished, unedited garbage from a handy-cam circa 1990. My first impression was that Google is selling an unfinished version of the movie, or that the studios were putting something out there to see who would start pirating this thing. I can't believe this is a real film, and I can't believe they're charging money for this. If I could give it a half star I would, but Google review defaults to 1 star as the lowest. oof.

A film that attempts to construct a narrative it feels must be told, but with surgical precision removes from it the vehicle with which it would attempt to portray its message. Its characters are problematic not because they are unlikable but because they are unlikable for no particular reason, and the slow-panning shots that focused so deeply on their emotional struggles only served as padding for scenes that in reality had no emotional depth. A shame in all respects.

Maybe in another 20 years when weed is legal everywhere, and everybody just watches our holographic televisions, our sensibilities have adjusted to appreciate this kind of film. Or not, cause it just wasn't that good. All the elements were there, great visuals, interesting characterizations, unpredictable plot twists. Still I was bored. But it does get the conversation going, so maybe there is something here. The fight scene was great.