Review of Only God Forgives (2013) by Leo G — 13 May 2014

This movie is atrocious. There is no semblance of a coherent story or dialogue on any front at any time. It's just Drive, but ratcheted up about 100 times. It's got even less dialogue, it's even more artsy, and it's far less entertaining. Also, it's even more pretentious (if that were even possible). I was actually excited about this movie, as the posters and trailers made it look like it had some kind of action, with kung fu and Hong Kong-style set pieces and stuff. Talk about false fucking advertising. The movie is just 90 minutes of people getting beaten to a pulp. And then (spoilers) Ryan Gosling sticks his hands inside his dead mom's belly and then gets them cut off. FUCK YOU, REFN.

Anyone can make 90 minutes of technicolor rainbows and savage beatings, but the thing that pisses me off the most about OGF is the fact that it seems to think that it's revolutionary somehow. Refn thinks that just showing people getting killed and tortured in various disgusting ways somehow has some kind of redeeming value. But he also thinks it's an actual movie. And I wouldn't call OGF an actual movie, as it has none of the things that real movies do: Characters, story, plot, dialogue, or (and this is a big one) entertainment.

OFFICIAL KEANU SCORE FOR ONLY GOD FORGIVES: 0/10 stars. Maybe, jut maybe, this movie would have been okay if it didn't think so God damn much of itself. But because Refn thinks he's God's gift to filmmaking, it comes off as self-absorbed and pretentious. What a massive and unpleasant waste of 90 minutes of my life.