Only God Forgives (2013)

Ryan Gosling gets Freudian, kickboxes in Bangkok’s criminal underworld

Only God Forgives is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling, the same duo that gave us 2011’s much-loved Drive. But loving Drive is no guarantee that you’ll enjoy this hellacious, brutal film, which was roundly reviled by critics. Only God Forgives maintains the stylized aesthetics of Drive, but it also takes that film’s already subdued emotions and disaffected performances and dials them down to absolute zero. In the resulting void, Refn combines a Lynchian absurdity with Kubrick’s detached violence, creating an Oedipal saga of barbarism and savagery. What’s the point? I’d be lying if I said I knew for sure. But, off-putting though it may seem at times, Only God Forgives is also hypnotizing, visceral, upsetting, soulless, dazzling. It’s an enigma that casts a bizarre, evil spell.