Only God Forgives (2013)
★ — Only God Forgives (2013)
Only God Forgives (2013) is a baffling, self-serious misfire that mistakes mood for meaning and style for substance. Reuniting Ryan Gosling with Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, it promised brooding tension and atmospheric thriller fare, but instead delivers a glacial, pretentious slog through neon-lit Bangkok brothels, empty corridors, and inexplicable symbolism. Gosling barely speaks (a trait that worked in Drive), but here it just makes his character feel vacant, not enigmatic. He stares, he walks slowly, he occasionally punches someone, but there’s no emotional core, no narrative drive, and certainly no payoff. The film’s most notorious scene (without spoiling specifics) involves Gosling’s character and his mother (played by Kristin Scott Thomas in a performance so cartoonishly vile it veers into parody). It’s not just disturbing; it’s actively repulsive, gratuitous, and utterly disconnected from any coherent theme or story purpose. Rather than deepen the psychological stakes, it feels like shock for shock’s sake, a grotesque flourish in a film already drowning in empty provocations. Visually, Only God Forgives is slick: moody lighting, saturated reds, and long, silent tracking shots create a dreamlike (or nightmarish) tone. But without characters to care about or a plot that makes sense, it’s all surface. The violence is stylised but meaningless, the dialogue sparse to the point of absurdity, and the pacing so slow it becomes comical. After the cool precision of Drive, this feels like a parody of Refn’s worst instincts. Indulgent, emotionally hollow, and morally murky without insight. It’s not just bad; it’s aggressively unengaging. Skip it unless you’re researching how not to follow up a hit.
Rating: ★ | Year: 2013 | Watched: 2026-04-29
