“Time to meet the Devil!”

Anthony’s rating: When you’re in the mood for a bag full of What the Eff slow burnt to a crisp.

Anthony’s review: The slogan “Art is supposed to make you think” is the doctrine that in part what makes a work of art relevant or worthwhile is its underlining of some social problem. We are stimulated to think about the problem, to recognize its ubiquity in contemporary society and the harsh effects it has on people. We recognize that some people’s enjoyment is bought at the price of other people’s unmerited suffering. In this lies the emotional experience provoked by the work, an experience involving sympathy for or empathy with others. Perhaps we are, thereby, stimulated to do something about the social problem to which the piece refers.

Such a process is never imbued with attractive values however, and thus to many will appear dull, slow, empty and devoid of an actual story. After all, with distributors charging more than ever a premium for an evening’s worth of strong sensory experiences, shouldn’t we be gratified with a few well placed money shots complete with pyrotechnics and some cooler-than-McQueen soundtrack? We have enough depressing matters as it is to deal with in a work week, we deserve an outlet of pure entertainment that won’t remind us once again of just how f-ed-up our world has become.

I will not pretend to understand any of the insanity that is Only God Forgives. If Drive was director Refn’s answer to The Fast and the Furious, than this one is an enigmatic response to Tarantino and his revival of the Revenge genre. It is, at its core, a psychoanalyst’s wet dream rolled in Oriental spirituality and wrapped around an advisory travelogue. It offers 15 minutes’ worth of storytelling stretched with non-stop staring contests between the principals (leading man Ryan Gosling has a thouroughly-counted 22 lines in the entire run of the film), admittedly gorgeous shots of cinematography, and some Inception-inspired baseline music that carries along one imagery within the next.

If only someone could explain to me the deeper implications of Karaoke Night, than I feel my ability to appreciate would greatly improve. Or at least I’d know why I felt it so strangely frightening.

Gosling, replacing original star Luke Evans, plays the lower end of two drug-smuggling brothers who must satisfy their crime-lord mother’s need for retribution when the older sibling is quite gruesomely dispatched. “He raped and killed a 14 year-old girl,” the younger son explains to her as the reasons behind ther eldest’s death, to which she simply scoffs, “He must’ve had his reasons.”

Kristin Scott-Thomas, spectacularly unrecognizable as a Joan Rivers-meets-Nurse Ratched queen of all bitches, walks all over whomever dares try to share her spotlight. As she induces the “Mother” of all Oedipus complexes (she literally had her son kill his own father), so does she meet one of the more jaw-dropping ends of all time. Cast as their tormentor, the chill-inducing Vithaya Pansringarm is a name I can’t pronounce but will nevertheless keep on my watchlist for sure. He. Friggin. Creeps. Me. Out.

Only God Forgives is an uncomfortable film to watch, with its gory violence and disturbingly slow imagery, but nonetheless a film impossible to dismiss and ignore once viewed. It will no-doubt polarize it’s entire audience in complete opposite ends of the appreciation spectrum, and that in itself should be enough to be considered a movie of significance. If not one that can be dubbed “good.”

Intermission!

• Tom Burke is one highly underrated actor. Too bad he’s only there for 3 minutes..
• …and didn’t need to see him turned into a morning-after Halloween pumpkin.
• Listen, I always liked Kristen, but Madonnafying her is an upgrade I never imagined for her yet find quite enticing. And I never liked Madonna.
• I don’t know what’s with the dress and why he wants it back so bad, but wow, repressed childhood issues much?
• Seriously, what IS it with the karaoke?
• “Wanna Fight?” I mean, if that’s how you resolve things when a cop comes to arrest you, sign me up for crimes!
• …aaaand fight’s over. Wow. Poor Ryan, I hope he didn’t train too long in Muay Thai just to get his ass handed to him without landing a punch!
• So, hypothetically, you find your mother eviscerated, what’s the first thing YOU wanna do?
• That ending is really the icing on a WTF cake baked by someone who shhhmoked something shhhtrong!