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Update: July 22, 2013
Critics Review of ONLY GOD FORGIVES
Rotten Tomatoes: 34% Approval Rating (35 out of 102 critics like it)
Consensus: Director Refn remains as visually stylish as ever, but Only God Forgives fails to add enough narrative smarts or relatable characters to ground its beautifully filmed depravity.
Rolling Stone - 2/4
Any movie that gets booed at the Cannes Film Festival has to have some kind of mojo going for it. What really pisses off audiences about Only God Forgives are its arty pretensions. Refn, who directed Gosling to spectacular effect in 2011's Drive, refuses to send out his films with a decoder. He believes cinema is made up of images and sounds that mesh and collide in ways that speak to the individual viewer. RThe film never coheres the way Drive did. There's motion but no momentum. Gosling, meant to be a blank page for us to write on, often looks merely blank. Where Drive shrewdly mystifies, Only God Forgives stupefies.
New York Times - 1/5
Here is what Refn says in a director's note: "The original concept for the film was to make a movie about a man who wants to fight God." All right. Whatever. Unable to give his automaton any suggestion of an inner life, Mr. Gosling moves through Only God Forgives as if in a slow-motion trance. He starred in Mr. Refn's last film, Drive, and will survive this catastrophe. But whether Mr. Refn can recover is open to question. The movie is so devoid of emotion that its ritualized gore acts as a narcotic. Filmed in shades of red, with a minimal screenplay, Only God Forgives looks like a ghoulish fashion shoot in hell. Three words should suffice: pretentious macho nonsense.
Entertainment Weekly - C-
Only God Forgives, which reteams Ryan Gosling with director Nicolas Winding Refn, isn't a quasi-real-world thriller like Drive (2011), their first collaboration. It's a solemnly preposterous piece of designer revenge pulp, with actors who stand around bathed in red and blue light like David Lynch mannequins in between scenes of torture and murder. The seedy, neon-lit Bangkok streets are depicted as a place of depravity and no mercy but also martinet control. What this means is lots of overripe maiming and execution, all accompanied by satanic synth-pop. Only God Forgives is really just a lurid horror film dressed up in nonsensical swank.
Los Angeles Times - 1/5
God only knows what Nicolas Winding Refn had in mind when he made "Only God Forgives." The Danish filmmaker's latest theater of the macabre is brutal, bloody, saturated with revenge, sex and death, yet stunningly devoid of meaning, purpose, emotion or decent lighting. Seriously. Artful shadows can certainly set a mood; too many and it merely looks like someone is trying too hard. That sense of overreach haunts "Only God Forgives." The film comes as a disappointment after the provocative intrigue of the brutal bad guys Refn diced so deliciously, if not delicately, in his brilliant 2011 neo-noir "Drive."
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Update: May 22, 2013
ONLY GOD FORGIVES Booed at Cannes; First Critics' Reactions
Ryan Gosling has become The Man Who Wasn't There at the Cannes Film Festival, both physically and in the ultra-violent character he plays in Nicolas Winding Refn's controversial new movie. The star of Only God Forgives, a slow-motion bloodbath with disturbing Oedipal overtones that was booed at its Wednesday morning press preview, begged off a festival appearance to walk the red carpet at the evening world premiere.
It's possible that Gosling feared facing a firing squad of disappointed journalists, since his reteaming with Danish director Refn is proving to be the biggest dud so far at Cannes 2013. Hopes were high because their first movie together, the wheel-squealing Drive, rocked the Croisette in 2011 and won Refn that year's Best Director prize.
The Hollywood Reporter reported a "ton of walkouts a number of boos" while New York Magazine and other members of the press were debating whether they heard a lot of boos or just "a smattering." That and according to Hollywood.com's Matt Patches, apparently Ryan Gosling only has 17 lines of dialogue. And now that the critics present at the screening have had time to write up their thoughts and post their reviews online, it appears that the majority opinion is less than flattering.
"Movies really don't get much worse than Nicholas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives," wrote Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells. "It's a shit macho fantasy "hyperviolent, ethically repulsive, sad, nonsensical, deathly dull, snail-paced, idiotic, possibly woman-hating, visually suffocating, pretentious. I realize I sound like Rex Reed on one of his rants, but trust me, please - this is a defecation by an over-praised, over-indulged director who thinks anything he craps out is worthy of your time. I felt violated, shat upon, sedated, narcotized, appalled and bored stiff."
Awards Daily critic Sasha Stone wasn't as appalled by the film as Wells, but also made note of the gratuitous violence. "Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive takes him farther away from traditional narrative and deeper into abstract expressionism. His painter's eye makes Only God Forgives something beautiful to behold, awash in deep reds and geometric, carefully thought out shot compositions. But what it amounts to, in the end, is the careful work of a serial killer - not literally out there killing women but indulging in one bloody killing after another, practically licking the knife afterwards."
And Jessica Kiang, writing for IndieWire, sums up, "On paper, Only God Forgives is exactly the movie we might have wanted - a re-visitation to the dark, fetishistically violent world of Drive, with added local color and occasional, acid dialogue. Onscreen it's that too: just that and no more."
Cannes 2013: Ryan Gosling a No-Show, Booed at Festival for Debut of Only God Forgives
Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives Booed at Cannes, Early Reviews Less Than Flattering
Critics Review of ONLY GOD FORGIVES
Rotten Tomatoes: 34% Approval Rating (35 out of 102 critics like it)
Consensus: Director Refn remains as visually stylish as ever, but Only God Forgives fails to add enough narrative smarts or relatable characters to ground its beautifully filmed depravity.
Rolling Stone - 2/4
Any movie that gets booed at the Cannes Film Festival has to have some kind of mojo going for it. What really pisses off audiences about Only God Forgives are its arty pretensions. Refn, who directed Gosling to spectacular effect in 2011's Drive, refuses to send out his films with a decoder. He believes cinema is made up of images and sounds that mesh and collide in ways that speak to the individual viewer. RThe film never coheres the way Drive did. There's motion but no momentum. Gosling, meant to be a blank page for us to write on, often looks merely blank. Where Drive shrewdly mystifies, Only God Forgives stupefies.
New York Times - 1/5
Here is what Refn says in a director's note: "The original concept for the film was to make a movie about a man who wants to fight God." All right. Whatever. Unable to give his automaton any suggestion of an inner life, Mr. Gosling moves through Only God Forgives as if in a slow-motion trance. He starred in Mr. Refn's last film, Drive, and will survive this catastrophe. But whether Mr. Refn can recover is open to question. The movie is so devoid of emotion that its ritualized gore acts as a narcotic. Filmed in shades of red, with a minimal screenplay, Only God Forgives looks like a ghoulish fashion shoot in hell. Three words should suffice: pretentious macho nonsense.
Entertainment Weekly - C-
Only God Forgives, which reteams Ryan Gosling with director Nicolas Winding Refn, isn't a quasi-real-world thriller like Drive (2011), their first collaboration. It's a solemnly preposterous piece of designer revenge pulp, with actors who stand around bathed in red and blue light like David Lynch mannequins in between scenes of torture and murder. The seedy, neon-lit Bangkok streets are depicted as a place of depravity and no mercy but also martinet control. What this means is lots of overripe maiming and execution, all accompanied by satanic synth-pop. Only God Forgives is really just a lurid horror film dressed up in nonsensical swank.
Los Angeles Times - 1/5
God only knows what Nicolas Winding Refn had in mind when he made "Only God Forgives." The Danish filmmaker's latest theater of the macabre is brutal, bloody, saturated with revenge, sex and death, yet stunningly devoid of meaning, purpose, emotion or decent lighting. Seriously. Artful shadows can certainly set a mood; too many and it merely looks like someone is trying too hard. That sense of overreach haunts "Only God Forgives." The film comes as a disappointment after the provocative intrigue of the brutal bad guys Refn diced so deliciously, if not delicately, in his brilliant 2011 neo-noir "Drive."
________________________________
Update: May 22, 2013
ONLY GOD FORGIVES Booed at Cannes; First Critics' Reactions
Ryan Gosling has become The Man Who Wasn't There at the Cannes Film Festival, both physically and in the ultra-violent character he plays in Nicolas Winding Refn's controversial new movie. The star of Only God Forgives, a slow-motion bloodbath with disturbing Oedipal overtones that was booed at its Wednesday morning press preview, begged off a festival appearance to walk the red carpet at the evening world premiere.
It's possible that Gosling feared facing a firing squad of disappointed journalists, since his reteaming with Danish director Refn is proving to be the biggest dud so far at Cannes 2013. Hopes were high because their first movie together, the wheel-squealing Drive, rocked the Croisette in 2011 and won Refn that year's Best Director prize.
The Hollywood Reporter reported a "ton of walkouts a number of boos" while New York Magazine and other members of the press were debating whether they heard a lot of boos or just "a smattering." That and according to Hollywood.com's Matt Patches, apparently Ryan Gosling only has 17 lines of dialogue. And now that the critics present at the screening have had time to write up their thoughts and post their reviews online, it appears that the majority opinion is less than flattering.
"Movies really don't get much worse than Nicholas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives," wrote Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells. "It's a shit macho fantasy "hyperviolent, ethically repulsive, sad, nonsensical, deathly dull, snail-paced, idiotic, possibly woman-hating, visually suffocating, pretentious. I realize I sound like Rex Reed on one of his rants, but trust me, please - this is a defecation by an over-praised, over-indulged director who thinks anything he craps out is worthy of your time. I felt violated, shat upon, sedated, narcotized, appalled and bored stiff."
Awards Daily critic Sasha Stone wasn't as appalled by the film as Wells, but also made note of the gratuitous violence. "Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive takes him farther away from traditional narrative and deeper into abstract expressionism. His painter's eye makes Only God Forgives something beautiful to behold, awash in deep reds and geometric, carefully thought out shot compositions. But what it amounts to, in the end, is the careful work of a serial killer - not literally out there killing women but indulging in one bloody killing after another, practically licking the knife afterwards."
And Jessica Kiang, writing for IndieWire, sums up, "On paper, Only God Forgives is exactly the movie we might have wanted - a re-visitation to the dark, fetishistically violent world of Drive, with added local color and occasional, acid dialogue. Onscreen it's that too: just that and no more."
Cannes 2013: Ryan Gosling a No-Show, Booed at Festival for Debut of Only God Forgives
Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives Booed at Cannes, Early Reviews Less Than Flattering
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