After Drive comes the slow motion, mangled wreck that is Only God Forgives.
In the J.G. Ballard novel (and David Cronenberg movie adaptation) Crash, a group of nihilistic thrill seekers stage automobile accidents for twisted kicks and you can’t help wonder if director Nicholas Winding Refn is operating in a similar way here. Drive’s critical and commercial acclaim put him on Hollywood’s Formula 1 starting grid; here, he’s very deliberately tried to sabotage his race to spin out in a glorious fireball. And while some see great beauty in a spectacular crash n’ burn – and admire the foolish wilfulness that caused it – the end result is still a write-off.
Let’s leave the metaphors be for now, since Winding Refn has packed his own film with enough portentousness for an entire career, let alone one film. The irony is, it’s all in the service of a revenge plot that’s simple to the point of stupid – tit-for-tat Bangkok killings sparked by a loose cannon Yank Billy (Brit Tom Burke) senselessly raping and murdering a teenage prostitute, then in turn being slain by the girl’s father, with some help from impassive, deadly cop Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm).
http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ign/all/~3/-Z7N0tcV-08/only-god-forgives-review
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