“Never be so brief as to become obscure.”
-- Tryon Edwards
-- Tryon Edwards
 Gosling as Julian | When I first heard about the project, I jokingly referred to Only God Forgives as Thai Drive. Also written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and also starring Ryan Gosling, the comparison was easy. If only the comparison were at all kind to the former, or at least a little harder to make. Refn seems to have fallen in love with the most extreme facets of his work and attempted to construct an entire movie out of them.  There's not an easy way to give a plot synopsis for OGF, hence the brevity of the review, because what we see is such a small snippet of these character's lives, that to say much more than "It's a revenge story set in Thailand" would give away major portions of the film. Say what you will about Drive: that it was too slow, too stylistic, too plodding (I don't believe any of those; Drive is awesome), but at least it had a beginning, middle and end. OGF drops us in the middle of the story, has no interest in even alluding to the beginning, and wraps up somewhere still shy of the end. All the Refn staples are here: the characters move slowly and methodically, the dialogue is sparse and never wasted, the direction is moody and lingers on shots, but what made Drive work is missing. Drive had a very succinct story to tell, but OGF feels like it needs another half hour at the beginning and 10 minutes at the end. |
Thomas as Crystal That isn't to say the movies doesn't have its positives. Ryan Gosling is fantastic as a brother out to avenge his sibling's murder. Kristen Scott Thomas plays the family matriarch to discomforting, creepy perfection. The score is very different from Drive's but just as unconventionally brilliant. The problem is the script is only 60% of a story and gives all this talent (including Refn's directing) no real outlet. The script is the foundation for any movie, and when the foundation is cracked, it's tough not to condemn the house.
All the parts are here - save one - for a masterpiece, but in this case, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.
All the parts are here - save one - for a masterpiece, but in this case, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.
Just as expertly directed as Drive, and with similarly great performances, but the movie is far too minimalist
RSS Feed