Review of Only God Forgives (2013) by Peter F — 29 Oct 2013

Who needs dialogue when you can just have characters stare at each other in silence? So this is about a drug smuggler (Ryan Gosling) who gets involved in a vengeance murder plot when his ne'er-do-well brother gets killed in Bangkok.

This is from the director of Drive, a movie that I liked, but thought was way overhyped. You can totally tell this is made by the same guy; you watch the first half of Drive, and you have long pauses in conversation that you can drive a bus through.

At least Drive has a point where it really picks up... However, I am not reviewing Drive. Only God Forgives goes nowhere slow. The only thing that it has going for it is that it utilizes some cool color filters, so at least it is sometimes interesting to look at.

That said, it does feel like it is being overly hard to be artistic, as it is way more focused on the photography as opposed to any plot or character development. It was almost as if I slipped into an alternate dimension where people communicate telepathically, and that doesn't even begin to describe how much pensive staring there is featured in this.

There is so little dialogue and exposition that it comes across that these actors were poorly directed, like they weren't really given anything to do. Never has something so seedy been so boring, and this is a watch checker if there ever was one.