As he proved with Drive, Nicholas Winding Refn is unafraid of films that just sit back and let their visuals tell the story for them. Unfortunately for Only God Forgives, there is absolutely nothing of substance worth telling. Too long by approximately 90 minutes and weighed down by a pretentious and underwritten story, it's a small surprise that the only person worth commending in this whole production is Director of Photography Larry Smith. Watching this film is like watching a director try desperately to decide whether he wants to make an avant-garde experimental art film or a strait up thriller. The shots themselves, however, if viewed out of context of this train wreck, are masterful examples of composition and lighting - each frame of this film is like a painting, elegantly arranged and stylishly executed. Whether or not this movie is palatable for its visuals alone is entirely a matter of taste, as Only God Forgives proved one of the most divisive films of 2013 for that very reason. Best Shot: Perhaps it is the most memorable because it is the only scene where anything significant happens, but I'm automatically thinking of a dramatic overhead shot during the fight between Ryan Gosling's pathetic excuse for a protagonist and Vithaya Pansringarm's "Angel of Vengeance." It's a dramatic cut from the slow build up to the fight, and it helps restore life into the film for a few precious minutes. Like this article? Let us know in the comments section below.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
