Friday, December 6, 2013

Only God Forgives [2013]

Originally was super excited to see this film after I saw the trailer, but that was another classic case where the trailer was far superior than the film. 

The film's overall vibe is so similar to DRIVE that it's scary. I loved DRIVE, but this was a whole different animal. OGF was so focused on being cutesy with the scene setups, and slow camera sweeps, and quarter-speed character interactions that it became laughable. It was like they were trying to recreate the overall tone of DRIVE. Even from looking at the poster you think it would be possibly its sequel.

The gratuitous violence in the film feels unnecessary and pushed upon the audience for mere shook value alone. Whereas in DRIVE it was tied into Ryan's character's arc progression and was saved for the right, perfect moments to add to the overall story. Here it seemed used as a desperate attempt to get the audience' attention.

It's a beautiful film to look at, but there was just no substance there for me. I didn't care about the characters. I didn't care about the need for Ryan to extract revenge for his mother and brother whom were killed by the antagonist. It just felt like a big, sloppy, violent mess and couldn't wait for it to end. Now with DRIVE, I wanted more and still revisit that film from time to time.

Rating: 2.5/10
RT: 40%

No comments:

Post a Comment