Review of Only God Forgives (2013) by Simplemethod — 28 Jul 2013

Only God Forgives is terrible. After watching it, I really wanted to watch Drive. What this movie does is it takes those scenes in Drive where people stare at each other down long hallways, and turns it into a 90 minute movie of people staring, glaring, occasionally yelling, and sitting in a world that is predominately made out of Red, Black, and purple neon.

Despite the stellar cinematography and another stellar electronic score from Cliff Martinez, this is an ugly film. There's over the top violence just for the sake of being over the top. Possibly the worst part about this disaster is that it's a relatively simple movie, but all these random shots and confusing, is-this-actually-happening moments make it a jumbled, hard to follow mess.

It almost suggests there are two versions of Julian, one that wears the white shirt and one that wears the black, and that they are his divided subconscious. THAT is a good idea, but it doesn't expand on anything, and makes this severely limp follow up to Drive a true bummer.

The Pros: Good visuals, solid electronic soundtrack, some base ideas are smart. The Cons: Ryan Gosling is barely utilized, and just isn't very good because he doesn't have much to work with, it was filmed with a sh*tty camera so it looks weird, there's violence for the sake of violence, it's a typical "artsy" movie that falls totally flat, weak script.

Better luck next time, avoid this one.