Only God Forgives - Nicolas Winding Refn

Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn – France/Denmark) 90 minutes

Nicolas Winding Refn, long a purveyor of slick action movies for art house audiences, reunites with Ryan Gosling after the success that was Drive. This time the setting is Thailand and Gosling plays Julian, the seemingly reluctant son of an American crime family, who is being urged by his psychotic mother (a surprisingly effective Kristin Scott Thomas) to avenge the death of his older brother. (The brother had it coming to him, something which gives Julian some pause). The man they are looking for is police chief Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), an impassive taciturn killer who swings a mean krabi sword, and who is unlikely to go quietly.

Gosling is a man who will always be able to rely upon the goodwill of the world’s womenfolk; unfortunately he has been less well served by his agent and the world’s casting directors. Only a small handful of the films he has appeared in have been any good and there have been a great many duffers. Only God Forgives falls somewhere between those two stools but it is a disappointment and doesn’t really do justice to Gosling, who is a decent actor. He reprises his puppy-dog Steve McQueen silent type from Drive and it falls a bit flat as he is forced to wander aimlessly around a film that is far more attentive to look than to plot. Gosling is not so inexpressive as he first appears but the silent role doesn’t always work (I shudder to think how he will turn out in the next Terrence Malick, which he has just finished shooting).

Where Only God Forgives excels is in atmosphere and with its visual palette; Refn is one of the greatest filmers of the night going and some of his sequences are wonderfully mounted. But whereas Drive pared its story of an unlikely tough-guy loner down to a sharp, clean fable, his new film is a mess that overplays its hand far too often. Refn is a little too in love with the photogenic locations he found in Bangkok and he can’t resist framing everything with exquisite taste – there is one particular shot of Scott Thomas against a grilled window that is annoyingly intrusive, if geometrically beautiful. The director’s hand is also far too apparent in a host of characters that are poorly written and barely credible (true, the film is not meant to be overly realistic but you still need a bit of credibility to hook the viewer). There are some scenes too which are just woefully incompetent, such as when Julian, for reasons best known to himself, decides to introduce his hooker girlfriend to his harridan of a mother.

The violence in the film is also a bit hard to take, even by Refn’s standards, and there is a bit too much sadistic pleasure in its portrayal. Refn does his best to suffuse the film with local atmosphere, going so far as to have the opening credits in Thai, but the only Thais that interest him are hookers and viciously venal cops. I don’t wish to throw the ‘racist’ tag about but Refn’s portrayal of Thailand certainly ticks all the Orientalist boxes. Only God Forgives, with its bombastic title and its sexy, red-lit sheen will please fans of sado-arty cinema, and fans of Ryan Gosling, but it’s thin stuff that is best consumed as a cinematic coffee-table book.

The Place Beyond the Pines – Derek Cianfrance

The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance – USA) 140 minutes

Derek Cianfrance’s third feature promises much but ultimately comes unstuck, in spite of its undeniable qualities. The film focusses on a fairground daredevil motorcyclist played by Ryan Gosling, and a rookie cop (Bradley Cooper) with whom he has a brief, fateful encounter that changes the lives of all in the film. It is hard to talk about The Place Beyond the Pines too much without giving away spoilers but I’ll try my best.

Gosling plays Luke Glanton, who learns, when visiting Schenectady, New York that an old flame of his, Romina (Eva Mendes), has had a son by him. She refuses to leave her current partner but continues to see him surreptitiously nonetheless. Luke’s plan for winning back Romina and Jason is to put himself in a financially comfortable position, something that is highly improbable, to say the least. He meets Robin, a mechanic and small-time criminal, who suggests they rob banks together, using Luke’s motorcycle prowess as a getaway.

The film is divided into three sections, or movements, the third of which takes place fifteen years later, and which involves the sons of Luke and Avery Cross, the cop whose story takes up most of the second part. This third section is where the film’s credibility begins to flag, with far too many plot irregularities and coincidences swept under the carpet. Stretching the film across generations is also overreaching – while it may seem to have Shakepearean potential for some, it can also very easily go Jeffrey Archer. Cianfrance’s film is not quite the latter but it is certainly not the former either.

There is a problem with the way Cianfrance, a talented director, furnishes his story. The story arcs are a little unconvincing and he tries to invest the film with an unnecessarily mythic air, with the ethereal chants of Mike Patton’s score (yes, he of Faith No More); it is as if he has prepared the film in advance for greatness, much as parents go to great efforts to get a children’s room ready before the birth of a child. Unfortunately, the story is just not really up to this heady challenge – it’s mundane, dull and strives above itself at times. The teenagers in the third section are far too old, especially Emory Cohen as AJ Cross, whose Brando-esque performance is severely misjudged. The script also jars in parts – do petty criminals really use management jargon like ‘skillset’? The title, which comes from the Mohawk meaning for Schenectady, is an admirable enough one in its own right yet it sits strangely with the film as a whole.

While Cianfrance’s writing might leave something to be desired, he is a fine director, with many of the sequence’s stunningly filmed, such as the fairground scenes early on and the motorcycle chase after a botched robbery. Cooper, Gosling and Mendes are all excellent and it is a pleasure to see Ray Liotta in yet another small-time tough-guy role. Liotta’s career seems to be back on track in a minor key – sometimes I think the witness protection program Henry Hill was assigned was Ray Liotta’s career. You can’t fault Derek Cianfrance’s ambition or sincerity and he is talented enough a director to turn out something great at some point. For the moment, The Place Beyond the Pines, admirable as it is in many ways, is not it.