Movie Breakdown: Only God Forgives

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing lead us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling have put together what looks like Drive set in Thailand.

The Reality:

As it turns out, Only God Forgives is not Drive set in Thailand.  It’s mostly just a heady (some would prefer to say pretentious, I’m sure) film that never bothers to develop a single one of its large collection of interesting characters.  It’s just there on the screen doing nothing but existing as a very stylistic and incredibly violent experience.  If that’s what you want, then briskly walk out and see it.  If you’re looking for any sort of depth or substance, though, then I recommend catching a different movie.

The Lesson:

Sometimes a good looking film is just a good looking film.