Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives


A lot of people are going to go to see this movie expecting Ryan Gosling to be the star, the hero. And the hero always wins, right? Well, that's not this movie. Only God Forgives is a brutal morality play. It is an uncompromising art film by a director who obviously doesn't give a hoot about its commercial success.

I've read several negative reviews about this film. One guy said it only has about eight words of dialog. That's crap. There is dialog all through the film, though most of it is subtitled. And not once does a character say, "I've got this." or, "I haven't seen that before." Another person said it was a montage of unrelated scenes. Bull. Many of the scenes are juxtaposed but there are no "unrelated" edits in this film. Anyone with even an average intellect should be able to follow it. Really, it's not that cryptic. Another review I read said it was too violent and gross. Well, apparently they have not seen Pusher III: I Am the Angel of Death. This is a Nic Refn film, not a Saturday morning matinee popcorn film. This is not Iron Man III.


Only God Forgives gives up nothing. It is a pure work of artistic vision that conveys a very strong message. The key to the film is given in one of the very first lines of dialog, "...time to meet the Devil." In essence, that is what the film is about: punishment of the wicked.


I give it seven stars out of seven. Not because it is the best film ever, but because the technical filmcraft is perfect and the vision of the director is without compromise. That is film at its best.

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Have you ever held a lion in your arms? I have. He smelled funky.

I give it two stars out of seven. The dialogue was awful, the direction a joke, acting almost pushed to ridicule (likely thanks to the director), it rang false almost the entire film, there is no justification in the actions of the characters and instead we have a past pasted together as an excuse to show pretty and disturbing images, its metaphors are obvious and simplistic and just short of outright telling the audience this is what this means, it felt like a movie made by a director who has been told one too many times that he is talented, the actors eyes seem to be saying "this doesn't feel right but this guy is talented so let's just go with it," the plot is oddly enough weak and absurd at the same time, and this long sentence of mine is like the film - could have been summed up in a fraction of the time and the film/sentence would have conveyed the same result: two stars out of seven.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

How can a guy make something brilliant like Drive then follow it up with crap?

Yeah, I can't wait to see this movie. Definitely seems like the most polarizing film of the year.

^ Indeed. It won the top award at the Sydney Film Festival this year. He won with Bronson too I believe.


Have you seen it then?

No but it's sitting at 36% on RT with 104 reviews counted. Plus Harry giving it 2/7.

I'm still giving it a chance.

Obviously I'll watch it when it hits DVD and I'm hopeful but looks like it blows.

It's been getting almost nothing but flack since Cannes.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Harry, that's my exact review of The Lone Ranger

Spoiler alert;

Nic Refn on Ryan Gosling and "Only God Forgives": VICE Podcast

Wow. That's deep, Refn.

Haven't gotten around to seeing this yet, but I'm sure I'll like it. The cinematography and visual style looks breath-taking and I love films that push the envelope and try to be different. I am however shocked by the extremely negative reviews. Just because a film doesn't make sense to the critic,shouldn't make it have a preposterously low score.

This film makes sense, the characters are just hollow. There is nothing to connect them to the audience at all. The lack of dialogue is frustrating because without it the characters are given nothing to do, this makes for some very bad acting throughout. I think the reason a lot of people are pointing to Thomas as the bright spot is because she is the only one given a whole lot to say. This makes her character at least interesting. I will say I was frustrated with this film often but I still was hanging on the edge of my seat during the climax interested to see what was to become of everyone. The visuals in this film are great, no doubt Refn can frame a film in stylistic interesting ways.

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Letterboxd

The reason I fell in love was more down to aesthetics than anything else. It's a beautifully shot (and scored) movie. I enjoyed the story and characters, but for once that wasn't the driving (sorry) force behind why I enjoyed it.

So I'm trying to keep that in mind for Only God Forgives. From the trailers, it looks like it appeals on the same level.

Any idea when it gets a UK release?

Released August 2nd in UK...

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Next weekend? Excellent!

Are you guys not able to stream it on amazon or vudu?

Regardless, this film will be leagues better than anything Hollywood rolls out. Personally, I cannot wait to see it.