Review of Only God Forgives (2013) by Arth J — 21 Sep 2018

Such grittiness that nothing but blood comes out of it..

Only God Forgives.

Only God Forgives is a character driven action thriller about a guy seeking revenge for the death of his elder brother and ends up finding out inedible revelations about his past. Ironically, in a world where each character thrives on their emotions with such grittiness that nothing but blood comes out of it, the emotions depicted in the feature is exhaustingly shallow and at points juvenile.

And the primary reason to that is their one dimensional perspective and the wafer thin characteristics handed over to each characters that they are supposed to override for the entire tale. Whenever such slow pill natured feature is to be projected, it inherently demands keen attention on details and a mature bubble that it all resides in it, unfortunately none of these aspects are in existence in here.

With a incongruent background score, overly enhanced sound effects that are frankly way too loud and grows annoying, redundant and inexpressible cinematography, unnecessary slow motions and amatuer editing, that all helps in on anchoring it even more. The undercooked characters in writing easily factors in on the actors on their performance, as even Gosling and Scott Thomas fails to deliver a convincing or even more disappointing, a comfortable portrayal that is at least at ease.

The writer-director Refn has a long way to run on both script and execution for he might have his vision stable, but its the chalky polishing of it itches throughout the course of the feature. The action sequences are somewhat impressive but even in such situations the editing and camera work shucks away the intensity of the sequence. The bright colors and few lethally choreographed action sequences are the only high points of the feature.

Only God Forgives is a fine example of how each tiny aspects that goes under production on each day is essential, since if not taken care of, the outcome can be such a blunder.