Movie Review: Only God Forgives

Monday, July 22, 2013

Movie Review: Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn.
Written by: Nicolas Winding Refn.
Starring: Ryan Gosling (Julian), Kristin Scott Thomas (Crystal), Vithaya Pansringarm (Chang), Gordon Brown (Gordon), Yayaying Rhatha Phongam (Mai), Tom Burke (Billy), Sahajak Boonthanakit (Kim), Pitchawat Petchayahon (Phaiban), Charlie Ruedpokanon (Daeng), Kovit Wattanakul (Choi Yan Lee), Wannisa Peungpa (Kanita), Narucha Chaimareung (Papa San).

Nothing would make me happier than being able to say that Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives was some sort of misunderstood masterpiece or at least a guilty pleasure. This is, after all, the Danish filmmaker’s follow-up to Drive – one of my absolute favorite films of 2011, and arguably the best crime drama of this young decade so far, and Only God Forgives ranked very high on my most anticipated films of the year list. But alas, I cannot say that, because Only God Forgives is a horrible movie – violent and pretentious in equal doses, with most of the characters seemingly on the verge of falling asleep during any of their line readings. Drive was a crime drama that was deeper than it initially appeared to be (and I stand by that, even if I seem to be in the minority in thinking so – even among the many people who loved Drive). Only God Forgives on the other hand is a movie that acts like it is about something deeper – but peel back the layers and there’s nothing there. And yet, you watch the movie and you can tell everyone involved in making it is extremely talented – they just laid an egg this time out. Really talented people can work far worse movies than non-talented people – and Only God Forgives is a perfect example of that.

The movie takes place in Bangkok. Julian (Ryan Gosling) and his brother Billy (Tom Burke) work there as drug dealers, and have a boxing club as a front. After a violent fight sequence kicks off the film, we follow Billy on his quest to, in his words, “Fuck a 14 year old”. It doesn’t take him long to find one – but he doesn’t merely fuck her, he rapes and murders her. The cops – led by Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) are called – but Chang doesn’t arrest Billy. Instead, he calls the dead girl’s father, screams at him for allowing his daughter to become a prostitute, and then leaves him alone in the room with Billy. Needless to say, Billy doesn’t last long. Julian’s mother Crystal (Kristen Scott Thomas) arrives in Bangkok, and wants Julian to avenge his brother. When Julian finds out what Billy did, he kind of thinks his brother got what was coming to him – but his she-devil of the mother doesn’t care (“He must have had his reasons” she says) and wants the man who murdered her son – and Chang, the cop who allowed it to happen – and pretty much everyone else in Thailand to die to avenge her beloved son.

All of this probably sounds a lot better than the movie actually is. The basic plot outline could very easily be made into an extremely violent, entertaining crime thriller. Something like Drive, in fact. Winding Refn shouldn’t be expected to repeat himself – and while you can by the ever moving camera in Only God Forgives and the changing color palette that the same person is behind both films, the only way in which these films are really similar is that both are extremely violent and bloody. I don’t have a problem with blood and violence in a movie – as long as there seems to be a reason for it. In Only God Forgives, there doesn’t appear to be. There are no good guys in Only God Forgives, only degrees of awful really, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing if the characters we interesting – the problem being they’re not. Ryan Gosling, normally one of the best actors working together, appears almost comatose throughout the movie. His character in Drive didn’t say much – neither did his character in this year’s The Place Beyond the Pines – but in both of those movies, you could tell there was something going on inside of the characters – his performance in Drive in particular is masterfully subtle. But in Only God Forgives, he simply seems bored, lifeless and dull. I have heard some critics say that the sword wielding cop Chang, played by Vithaya Pansringarm, is the film’s hero, but really, he’s just as bad as everyone else – which again, I don’t object to, if he plays an interesting character. The problem is he doesn’t. The revelation about his home life may explain why he does what he does, but it doesn’t make him any more interesting. And why the hell the movie has him sing karaoke on a number of occasions?

There are two good things about Only God Forgives. One of them is the performance by Yayaying Rhatha Phongam as Mai, a prostitute frequented by Julian, who he stupidly brings along as his date to meet his mother. This is a small role – and she doesn’t really have much to do – but she does it remarkably well, making Mai into the only sympathetic character in the moving – the only person the audience can possibly care about. The other is the performance by Kristen Scott Thomas. Unlike everyone else in the movie, there is passion in her performance. Yes, she is in many ways a one note villain – whose every line is dripping with hatred, racism, cruelty, and creepiness in the way she talks about her sons and their penises (I’m pretty sure she has slept with both in them in the past). Everyone else in the movie is subdued almost to the point of lulling the audience to sleep – but you sit up and take notice when she’s onscreen.

Only God Forgives is a pretentious mess of a film. If Winding Refn had just given in to his base instincts (he has said repeatedly he makes “pornography” when talking about Only God Forgives) he may not have made a film as good as Drive, but he could have made Only God Forgives into a violent guilty pleasure. But by taking the film so deadly seriously, by draining it of any pleasure whatsoever, and seemingly instructing the entire cast except for Scott Thomas to play their roles like zombies, he has made a film that is both sickeningly violent and deadly dull. And that makes Only God Forgives one of the year’s worst films.

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: Get Carter (1971)

Friday, June 21, 2013

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: Get Carter (1971)

Get Carter (1971)
Directed by: Mike Hodges.
Written by: Mike Hodges based on the novel by Ted Lewis.
Starring: Michael Caine (Jack Carter), Ian Hendry (Eric Paice), Britt Ekland (Anna), John Osborne (Cyril Kinnear), Tony Beckley (Peter the Dutchman), GeorgeSewell (Con McCarty), Geraldine Moffat (Glenda), Dorothy White (Margaret), Rosemarie Dunham (Edna), Petra Markham (Doreen Carter), Alun Armstrong (Keith), Bryan Mosley (Cliff Brumby), Glynn Edwards (Albert Swift), Bernard Hepton (Thorpe), Terence Rigby (Gerald Fletcher), John Bindon (Sid Fletcher), Godfrey Quigley (Eddie), Kevin Brennan (Harry).

Get Carter is s shocking violent, cruel and nihilistic little revenge film. What starts out as a seemingly normal little revenge film, becomes increasingly coldhearted as it goes along, culiminating in an nihilistic finish to what is a truly great British gangster film. Michael Caine apparently once told Bob Hoskins that there were only three great British gangsters films “I was in one (Get Carter), you were in another (The Long Good Friday) and we both in the other (Mona Lisa)”. I have seen The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa, and they are truly great films. And Caine was right – Get Carter is just as great.

Caine stars as Jack Carter, a Londongangster, who decides to head up North to his old hometown of Newcastle when his brother gets killed. The police think it was simply a drunk driving accident, and Carter’s gangland bosses don’t want him to go either, saying they have connections up there, and they don’t want him mucking them up. But he doesn’t care – he’s going anyway. When he arrives, he is underestimated by the local gangsters – they think he’s little more than a big city dandy, playing at being a tough guy. But Carter is tough – and soon he’s playing one bad guy off of another, trying to dig into the truth.

Carter was never really close with his brother. One of his brothers friends, after he gets the crap kicked out of him, which Carter knew was most likely coming but did nothing to stop it, tells him that his brother was right – Carter really is a shit. And he is. He doesn’t care about his brother or his death – not really – but it’s really more of the principle of the thing. He was Carter’s brother, he was killed, and he wants to know why, and who did it. The only person he seems to care about at all is his niece Doreen (Petra Markham), who may well be his daughter since he had an affair with his brother’s wife years ago. Carter seems cold, detached and emotionless for much of the movie. He’s there on a “job”, and he’ll do it. But when he finds out that Doreen has been taken advantage of in a cruel way, that’s when he gets angry, and the bodies start to pile up.

It’s during the film’s final reel that the violence gets shocking, which gave British censors fits in 1971 when the film was released. Particularly bothersome to them was a cruel, cold scene where Carter forces his brother’s “once a week prostitute” Margaret (Dorothy White) to strip at gunpoint, and then forces her to take a lethal overdose of heroin. Margaret really isn’t guilty of much, but to Carter she is really just a means to an end. He wants to get someone else in trouble, and knows a dead prostitute at his house will do the trick – and Margaret fits the bill.

Get Carter has elements of film noir – and director Mike Hodges plays with this a little, having Carter read Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely on his train ride for example. But that’s just about the only light hearted moment in the film. If film noir presented a world without heroes, just different levels of rotten, than Get Carter certainly fits the bill. The “hero” of the movie is just as bad as everyone else in it. He’s a cruel, sociopathic murderer, who is going after other cruel, sociopathic murderers. And in this role, Michael Caine may just give the best performance of his career. His Carter is like a shark – constantly moving, constantly on the prowl and looking to move in for the kill. He is the typical post modern man – defined on his actions alone. He has no time for introspection. We see echoes of his Carter in lots of movies today. Caine, who is recent years seems to have transformed himself into a kind, grandfatherly like presence in movie like The Cider House Rules (for which he won his second Oscar), was not always so nice. In Get Carter, he’s downright cruel, and his eventual end is the only one that fits the movie.

Director Mike Hodges has never really achieved the level of Get Carter again in his career. In recent years, he has returned to the gangster genre, and made two fine films starring Clive Own – Croupier and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. But neither match the ruthless, cruel effeiciency of Get Carter. This film is masterful.