Drive partners Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling re-team on Only God Forgives, a shadow-drenched, neon-infused, fever-dream rumination on vague notions of loyalty and honor that labors so hard to wrap up its narrative in abstruse metaphor that it ends up saying almost nothing of consequence at all.

The spare, Bangkok-set story — a looping series of violent reprisals and refusals of same — is full of often mesmerizing touchstone signifiers. It’s Shakespearean, it’s a square-jawed Western set in the Orient, it’s an intricate mood piece that ponders the question of what would happen if Michelangelo Antonioni had tackled a film with commingled crime world and martial arts tropes. Only God Forgives is all of these things in theory, and yet none of them in practice. It’s a bravura exercise in style — a fairy tale (or nightmare) that unfolds in the same language as Drive, as Refn has said — but as any sort of drama it is inert.



When his brother Billy (Tom Burke) is murdered after killing an underage prostitute, American ex-pat Julian (Gosling), who works as a trainer at a boxing club that’s actually a front for an illegal drug business, finds himself roiled by a certain amount of inner conflict. Upon finding out some of the darker truths about his brother, he’s seemingly disgusted. But his imperious mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), who flies in to identify and claim her beloved Billy’s body, insists that Julian extract revenge.

Julian demurs, but in a wishy-washy manner that invites more abuse from his mother, who has no qualms about making clear whom her favorite son was. When Julian brings home for dinner a prostitute whom he’s been visiting, Mai (Ratha Phongam), Crystal doesn’t hide her contempt either, labeling Mai a “cum-dumpster,” among a few other choice insults. Still, Julian dutifully lights his mother’s cigarette.

This cracked family dynamic — and Crystal’s ongoing machinations to find and slaughter those responsible for Billy’s death — ignores the film’s true main character, though. That would be Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), an avenging-angel cop who enjoys karaoke when he isn’t meting out his own brand of justice by lopping off people’s hands. Naturally, he eventually crosses paths with both Julian and Crystal.

Only God Forgives is rather exquisitely photographed; cinematographer Larry Smith’s compositions mean something, and the slow tracking shots give ample time to admire the vivid production design, with its deep, symbolic reds. And it’s put together with nerve, definitely. Cliff Martinez, who also contributed music to Drive, offers up a score that’s appropriately ominous at times but also communicates waves of mournful distance between mother and son, even as they remain locked in a weird, sexually charged, symbiotic relationship. The best portions of Refn’s film impart an elemental dread, but these moments are few and far between. His screenplay is too thinly sketched to work as an existential crime thriller. It lacks the purring, streamlined purpose of Drive, and its characters aren’t merely types — they’re complete ciphers.

Dating back to even some of his earliest work, Gosling has a true gift for nonverbal elucidation, and finding large meaning in the smallest gestures. Here, though, he seems to treading water, delivering a dour performance that verges on parody. Julian doesn’t have a lot of dialogue (maybe two dozen lines, tops), but Gosling plays the character as enigmatic and sullen simply for the sake of showcasing those qualities. Coming on the heels of another whispery, reticent turn, in The Place Beyond the Pines, it mostly makes the case that Gosling is hell-bent on shedding himself of teeny-bopper fans. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Radius/TWC, R, 89 minutes)

The comedown of a haughty socialite provides the basis for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, an examination of existential crisis and self-delusion that is nimble, glancingly funny and yet also marked by sly, unstressed depths. Anchored by a superlative, wound-up turn from Cate Blanchett that will surely generate some awards consideration talk, the film exhibits perceptive dramatic insight with only a leavening pinch of melodramatic inclination, highlighting the gravitational pull of the love one thinks they deserve. For the full, original review, from Screen Daily, click here. (Sony Pictures Classics, PG-13, 98 minutes)

An indie horror flick that debuted at the Fantasia Festival last year and made the rounds at a number of genre fests, the suburban-set Under the Bed unfolds with a nuance and relative level of sophistication that belies its generic title, before eventually succumbing to a haphazard, poorly explained explosion of gore at the hands of a nasty creature hell-bent on terrorizing a pair of brothers. Directed by Steven C. Miller, the movie is for much of its running time quite engaging, and plugged into a sense of clammy unease, but unfortunately pays off its story in familiar, uninteresting ways.

Eric Stolze’s script scores early points for the manner in which it nibbles around the edges of something darker, drawing a viewer in by hinting at reasons for this and that. It’s invested in all the human relationships to a heartening degree, and the film’s good performances (particularly Chasing Mavericks‘ Jonny Weston and young Gattlin Griffith, who have a very good rapport) are aided by heightened arguments (“You don’t get chances, you earn them!”) that really feel like honest extensions of legitimate parental frustration rather than telegraphed, plot-point conflict.

But somewhere in its second act the wheels pretty much come off for Under the Bed, and the less-is-more approach eventually yields to a more-is-more tack, wherein characters indiscriminately start getting their necks snapped and heads popped off, seemingly if for no other reason than to showcase the movie’s effects budget. Composer Ryan Dodson’s obliges these yawning instincts, bending from intriguing moodiness to conventionally clamorous aural declaration. And Miller’s direction, heretofore so artfully restrained, sags to indulge in flat, schlocky stagings of typical horror mayhem. In the end, Under the Bed doesn’t pay off its set-up in deeply rewarding fashion. Still, it confirms a certain talent in Miller and his cast, when they’re given shaded, interesting material with which to work. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (XLrator Media, R, 86 minutes)