Only God Forgives

Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn's first Hollywood picture Drive is one of the best films of the millennium, hands down. His Thailand-set revenge saga feels like a natural extension of that masterpiece, albeit a very boring and pretentious one. Where Drive was slow-burning and enrapturing, OGF is slow and uninteresting; where Ryan Gosling's Driver was charismatic and compelling, his drug-dealing enigma here is dull and vacuous; Drive's violence was impactful and meaningful, the brutality in this is nasty and pointless. There are, however, two shining lights that save this from being completely unwatchable. The neon-lit cinematography is simply stunning and quite often disguises the senselessness of what is actually going on, whilst the ballsy performance from Kristen Scott Thomas as Gosling's reprehensible white-trash mother is a terrific display of her versatility and deserving of a much better movie. A missed opportunity that suggests Refn is a hit and miss prospect.