Movie Review: Only God Forgives (2013)

Only God Forgives is a 2013 film directed once again by Nicolas Winding Refn. The film stars Ryan Gosling as a man who after the death of his brother, goes on a revenge quest against a character named Chang. The story also explores the inner demons inside of Julian (Ryan Gosling) and how they got there as well as how they effect and makes this man's life so hard to prosper within. This movie polarized critics when it's release occurred. Some people dubbed it as a movie they loved, but others called it one of the worst movies they'd ever laid eyes on. The film is very artistic and it does have some flaws that I read online and did spot in the movie. The film received complaints such as that it doesn't really have characters, but more representations of personality. That actually didn't bother me. I never knew it until just today, but I actually enjoy art films. How did I figure that out? That is because I thought this movie was really good. From the opening scenes I was engrossed and sucked completely into this film. This is a very complicated story and while it does have one flaw that really speaks to me the majority of this movie was good. I've never loved art films and seeing this movie made me want to go out and explore more abstract cinema. Besides the acting being stellar, the storyline is one that I didn't honestly believe one director would be able to succeed with. Even with Refn being such an abstract and artsy director this movie is hard to pull off as the story is very far fetched. It's not really all that realistic and part of that leads back to the metaphor issue (which I for a fact, did not have a problem with) The one main flaw that spoke to me in this movie was the narrative. This movie doesn't really seem to have a straight flowing story. What the film does, it puts characters together in different scenes and explores their emotions and reactions to each other. While the overall story never got blurry to me, Only God Forgives does feel less of a story and more of a character exploration. Plenty of films are character studies and this movie falls apart once you realize that the storyline doesn't quite have a feeling of coherence throughout the piece. Other than that small issue, I very much enjoyed this movie. It's actually a film that interseted me more in art house pictures and inspired me to make one of my own. Overall, Only God Forgives is a very good movie that has excellent performances (especially from Ryan Gosling) and while it does falter in some ways in terms of it being a linear narrative, it's a highly impressive movie that shows just how much Refn can do with a camera and a few great actors. Three stars.