# review of the troubled psychology of only god forgives tl;dr nicolas winding refn semi-unconsciously wants to be ryan gosling the only things with more unhealthy and unchallenged orientalist / racist attitudes and assumptions than o.g.f is "lost in translation" - or those celebrities buying up babies around the world like they're dropping items into a shopping basket from ir nearest global supermarket it's as though some western directors say to themselves "we need some local color for this job" - and then fly off in ir air conditioned jets to whatever they cheerfully mis-perceive to be an "exotic" location consider the scene where ryan has ir hands tied and looks troubled while ir woman rubs one out on the bed in front of ir as symptomatic of nicolas winding refn's laughable worries over ir artistic ability (laughable perhaps because ey should be worried) these directors seem to travel extensively less because they know or care to know absolutely anything about people or culture or want to express ir own (often paltry) ideas about the world through the the lens of fellow human beings - but merely because they think ir exotic nature adds cultural weight style and depth to ir depthless flicks and cheap art often full of little but bad ideas poorly executed speaking of execution the violence of "only god forgives" is un-interestingly filmed utterly predictable - and statements by the director such as "art is an act of violence" both trite glib and utterly useless it's somewhat amusing just how badly nicolas winding refn wants to be ryan gosling; nic even hauls out ir inner mother 'donatella versace' complex out to talk about (unfortunately) relative penis size switching on red and green light bulbs does not make your film 'dark' 'moody' 'impressionistic' or 'lynchian' only god forgives is not a "triumph of style over substance" since the movie has little of either making everyone move deliberately slowly - as if through the oozing honeyed genius of the director's labyrinthine brain - only serves to pad out the play time and is not 'cool' the fact that ryan gosling seems such an affable and generally benign young man is itself the very problem; that even ir surname means 'a foolish inexperienced person' is not the problem but rather the fact ir's one of those blandly handsome hollywood profiles that's all to able and willing to be naively force-moulded into any lame role whatsoever - comedy romance thriller ultra-bland art house flick (so bad even the label of 'cult' peels right off) ryan gosling is not clint eastwood's "man with no name" - and certainly not toshiro mifune's "sanjuro"; when ey does 'steely gaze' it comes out as 'as though trying hard not to laugh or think about morning cartoons with a glass of milk' the women from thailand are oh-so typically quiet and obedient in this movie - perhaps just how refn imagines they are andor should be refn said ey was not trying to make a traditional martial arts movie - probably because ey has little knowledge of how to make one - but here doesn't seem to be able to make a decent art house movie either admit it - after watching the trailer you were expecting ryan gosling to do an "ong-bak" but were sorely disappointed how someone who made the often fantastically odd "valhalla" could have produced "only god forgives" is.. probably not a measure of anything much more than the possibility ir's a one-note director currently deep in a (not-too-creative) rut the karaoke and the wallpaper were the best parts by far [caption id="attachment_27887" align="aligncenter" width="121"] do you like stuff? // republic of bob