Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death.
Much has been made of the film’s excruciating scenes of violence and implied misogyny and Refn does seem to revel in a kind of unnecessarily macho viciousness here, but these issues are the least of the film’s myriad problems.
Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive follow-up boasts plenty of lurid ultraviolence but precious little originality.
It’s stylishly shot but nasty, sickeningly violent and, above all, extremely dull.
It's a fascinating film, and it deserves to be seen.
Experimental and uncompromising, Winding Refn and Gosling’s Drive follow-up is a tripped-out riff on the crime family movie in which The Grifters — literally — go to hell.
More of an abstract mood piece than a traditional narrative film, Only God Forgives is bound to disappoint those looking for either a conventional slice of Ryan Gosling or another Drive. Certain to split opinion down the middle, it’s both a frustrating experience and impressively stylish.
The result is a pastiche of Asian martial fights, chic non-erotica and clueless offensiveness. Even God might find this grimly mannered mess unforgiveable.
Strip away the noirish lighting and the high-end production design and you have a boring revenge melodrama without character development, emotional impact or moral nuance. If your idea of fun is watching Ryan Gosling sleepwalk through Bangkok, then this could be for you. But take something along to occupy the hellish longueurs in between.
Judged purely as an exercise in cinematic high-style, it is an unqualified success. But it is almost literally soulless.
Its visceral visions are too stylishly realised for Only God Forgives to go down as an abject failure, but it comes disappointingly close.
Only God Forgives is like doing hardcore acid
General release. Check local listings for show times.