10 Great Movie Duos Who Reunited And Made Garbage
4. Nicolas Winding Refn & Ryan Gosling
The Good: Drive
The Bad: Only God Forgives
Never have two films so close together by the same film-maker, starring the same lead acting and using the same principals of character mythology building and approach to writing provided such wildly different results.
In Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn's muted fascination with the cult of Ryan Gosling's cool pays off incredibly well as his gentle, romantic indie reveals an engine that is muscular and hilariously draws on exploitation action movies out of absolutely nowhere. Gosling is in full Steve McQueen mode, saying little but managing to transmit a lot in those few words and it's easy to absolutely fall into his cool.
But then Winding Refn tried it again with the impenetrable, self-indulgent Only God Forgives and the results are nothing short of nonsensical and difficult to watch. The adoration of Gosling goes too far without any substance and you get the feeling the director is interested more in fetishisation than actual story-telling.