Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Gordon Brown, Tom Burke
Certificate: 18
Extras: Audio commentary with Nicolas Winding Refn, 2 x Trailers, Alternative Artwork Gallery, Fan Art (Photo-Gallery), Limited Edition All City Poster Concepts (Photo-Gallery)
There’s no doubt that DRIVE set a high standard for director Nicolas Winding Refn and it was another intelligent leap in Ryan Gosling’s acting career and exposure. We’d seen many sides of the leading man after the romance of THE NOTEBOOK in the tremendous HALF NELSON and BLUE VALENTINE but DRIVE was the one that truly sent him to the top of the acting stratosphere. In ONLY GOD FORGIVES, the director and actor are reunited for an unforgettable delve into the dark, seedy side of Bangkok with no holds barred.
In this world Gosling plays Julian, a martial arts club owner who uses the business as a front for his drug dealing. When his brother is murdered after he has sickeningly taken the life of a 16-year old girl, his mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) arrives in Thailand to find out what went down and begins to arrange retribution for what she believes is an injustice.
Brutality was never a concern with DRIVE and it’s not either in ONLY GOD FORGIVES as we hit ruthless levels of visual and suggested violence. In fact, the tension of possibility takes an incredible hold of its own and you can sense in the atmosphere that anything can ensue. The sheer visceral beauty of this collaboration has expanded and developed extensively, with every frame an individual art-piece and each character fuelled to a volatile breaking point.
Gosling’s character is an amalgamation of his previous ‘Driver’ together with the repressed anger of Luke from THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES. However, the difference here is that his character has a lot of front but it’s also implied that he has a lack of seeing things through, much to the dismay of his Mother, Crystal. She’s played by an almost unrecognisable Kristin Scott Thomas in a role that she truly excels at. Crystal is a beast of a parent and her unwavering thoughts on his inadequacy consequently instigates the downfall of all of them.
ONLY GOD FORGIVES contains momentary religious connotations but the underlying message is that of ‘no God’ and punishment for those who don’t follow a moral code, there is no escape from your evil and this dark metaphor of a movie is fuelled by unlikable reality and circumstance. The only possible God we have here is the merciless Chang, played stoically and terrifyingly by the brilliant Vithaya Pansringarm, who hands out justice by his own rules.
Without wanting to sound too obvious, ONLY GOD FORGIVES isn’t a film for the mainstream despite its nature and the talent involved. For those looking for a bit of Gosling-loving beyond his exceptional acting talent, you won’t find anything to like about his cowardly character despite an already classic stare that gives you the suggestions that he’s trying to find a way out of his empty soul.
Saying that, if you’re looking for sheer invention and an introduction to a genre that’ll drag you through a dark world of little hope, then it achieves this in mesmerising fashion with nods to David Lynch in its vibe and now this very distinctive world created without mercy by Winding Refn and Gosling.
ONLY GOD FORGIVES is out now on Blu-ray and DVD.
