Watching the trailer it's easy for one to get lost in the notion that this is some kind of companion piece to the 2011 film of absolute fucking perfection, Drive, but I'm afraid this assumption builds too much expectation for OGF. Gosling this time takes the role of Julian the black sheep in a family of the most horrid people you could ever encounter. After his brother kills a prostitute, her father kills him, and Julian is expected by his mother to take revenge for his dirty paedophile/murderer brother. Once Julian puts the pieces together; Julian is a forgiving man, his crazy bitch mother though? Ummm not so much. What follows is a slow, plodding, linguistically graphic, often confusing, and visually disturbed cat and mouse game between the dirty cops and Julian's Norma Batesy drug Queen mother.
Although as stated above Only God Forgives is slow and confusing, it is also musically and visually striking, piercing every chord of the senses. Scenes of torture are continually surrounded by beauty, the decor on walls often drops you into a seedy labyrinthine underworld both claustrophobic and hypnotic, and the music sounds at times like an 8 bit dream/nightmare.
I really enjoyed the torture and violence, I loved the writing, was weirded out by the continual live 'kind of karoke' musical interludes, and overall thought it was a very cool film to look at. There is lots to love here, but it is the slowest of burns and too confusing at times for it's own good. I'm on the fence with this one, reflecting on the movie it's got a lot to offer I just wish the violence was turned up a little further and the pacing was quite a bit tighter. Judge for yourself, it's not Drive calibre, but it shouldn't have been booed out of Cannes film fest either.
