Only God Forgives (2013)

Since "Only God Forgives", does this mean I don't have to cut Nicolas Winding Refn any slack for this head-scratcher of a movie?

Coming into Only God Forgives, I was already on the fence regarding Refn.  I was a huge fan of Bronson (that was based on a true story though), but could barely get through the slog that was Valhalla Rising.  Despite all the critical acclaim and even my own initial love for Drive, I've since soured upon it after realizing many inaccuracies regarding cars and the plot.  If you make something called Drive and can't get your facts straight about cars, it kind of comes off as arrogant to me.  Then, I heard about how he called Carey Mulligan "chubby", and was like the guy is kind of an ass.  Having said all that, I watched Only God Forgives with a fairly open mind, and even though I can't say I liked it, I'm still willing to watch future films of his.  I'll give him credit for doing something different.

At least Only God Forgives has a general plot, but bear with me as I'm going to have to get into some spoiler territory to explain it all.  Julian (Ryan Gosling) and his older brother Billy (Tom Burke, who looks like a poor man's Michael Shannon) run a Thai boxing gym in Bangkok.  They are also criminal drug dealers.  Billy, in particular, is a real piece of work.  He rapes and kills an underage prostitute, but is caught by the police.  Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) allows the father of the prostitute to beat Billy to death, but then cuts off the father's arm as punishment for allowing his daughter to be a prostitute.  It wasn't clear to me at first that Chang was even a cop.  Based on his behavior and methods, I thought he might be some kind of rival crime lord.

Their mother, Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas), arrives to take care of the body, but she also wants revenge.  She's disappointed to learn that Julian has already let the father go once he found out that Billy raped and killed his daughter.  "I'm sure he had his reasons", she said.  While unintentionally hilarious, it illustrates the kind of person Crystal is.  Later we see that she had a very bizarre relationship with her sons, so it kind of makes you understand how these two didn't go down a good path.  I enjoyed Scott's performance the most though.  She's so creepy and horrible.

Crystal hires a series of hitmen to take out Chang, but he's always one step ahead of them.  Chang is ready with his magical "Sword of Justice" to deal out the punishment.  I call his sword magical, because it always seemed to come out of nowhere.  You'd see shots of Chang from the back where he didn't appear to have a sword on him, but he could reach behind his head and unsheathe it when needed.

I'll say this for Refn, he doesn't shy away from brutal violence.  This features bashed-in heads, forced amputation, and people sliced open.  It's gorier than a lot of horror films I've seen lately.  I also kind of got a misogynistic vibe as well.  Billy's opening moments are asking if he can have sex with a 14-year-old, and then beats up a different woman before finally raping and killing the 16-year-old.  He's quite the psychopath.  Then we see Julian have a prostitute tie him down to a chair while watching her masturbate.  Later he forces that same prostitute to remove a dress he bought her after taking her on a fake date.  Don't even get me into the weird shit that happens on later in the on between Julian and Crystal.  I'm still trying to figure out what the hell one of the final scenes was supposed to mean.

At times it gets all metaphysical with several dreamlike sequences that either flashback or foreshadow events in the story.  It's a little confusing and hard to watch at times.  It also doesn't help that Refn doesn't seem to be a big fan of dialog.  Ryan Gosling has one word, not even a full line of dialog, but one word spoken in the first 23 minutes.  I don't know what it is about Gosling, but he seems to be on a recent streak of movies that don't really demand him to speak all that much.  You can practically count the number of lines of dialog said by the main characters on a hand.  Is Refn's next film going to be called Stoic?  You don't get any emotion from anyone.

Only God Forgives is shot after shot of people stand and staring, or walking slowly past doorways.  I've often heard that every scene of a film should advance the plot or develop a character in some way.  I can't say that happens here.  There's one scene where Gosling stares at his fists and then turns the light off at his gym.  What was that scene trying to say?  When Chang isn't doling out justice, he sings karaoke.  This happens several times.  Is this to show how dispassionate he is about what he's doing?  I get that you can tell a story visually without dialog, but several times I found myself scratching my head wondering what the hell was going or what was trying to be said.

There are some interesting themes regarding family, justice and honor though.  While watching you may change your opinion over who the bad guys are.  I started thinking that Chang was the bad guy, but was rooting for him by the end.  I also looked at Julian as a grey character.  Despite being a criminal, he does have a code of honor, and couldn't completely dislike him either.  The best moment is a showdown between Julian and Chang that I actually had to rewind and watch several times I enjoyed it so much.

Refn does have a very interesting visual style and I like the way he framed many of the scenes.  Even though I don't always like the story, I at least appreciate his films for their look.  While I liked the soundtrack to Drive quite a bit, I thought with Only God Forgives at times it sounded a plane passing overhead.  Later I was reminded of something from a creepy horror film.  It's very moody.

A challenging movie, Only God Forgives is not going to be for everyone.  It's pacing and lack of dialog will make this feel longer than its 90 minute runtime for most.  Some may not even be able to finish it with all the weirdness and violence.  While beautifully shot and there are some interesting themes, there's only a handful a moments that made this watchable.  Even the most die-hard Ryan Gosling fans are likely not going to be able to enjoy this one.  I can only recommend this one if you are a fan of Nicolas Winding Refn, and even then it's a rental at best.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

It's like Drive 2.0...

It's easy to draw parallels between The Place Beyond the Pines and Drive.  It doesn't help at all that Ryan Gosling plays another stunt driver that doesn't speak much.  It's also similar in that the trailer sets up a much different film that what you really get.  I know many people that were disappointed with Drive thinking it was going to be an action-oriented film, and from the trailer for TPBtP, you might think the same thing.  That's not to say that it's bad, in fact it's good film, just not what you might expect.

This might be a little spoilery, but I'll try not to reveal too much....

Pines is an overarching story, spanning over 15 years, and following the families of Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) and Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper).  We begin with Luke, a stunt motorbike rider for a state fair.  He ex Romina (Eva Mendes) visits him and Luke learns he is the father of her newborn son.  Luke decides to stick around to provide for him, but eventually needs a way to make more money.  His current employer reveals he used to rob banks, so the two of them decide to start robbing several banks in the area.  He eventually crosses paths with Cross, a local Schenectady cop, during one of the robberies.  This is pretty much the story you see in the trailer, but this is really just the first act.

The second act follows Cross after stopping Glanton.  This is has made him a hero amongst his fellow officers, but he gets mixed up with some crooked cops, led by Ray Liotta.  Cross wants to expose the corruption, and uses the opportunity to gain a higher position.

We then get to the third act of the film.  The story comes full circle, but it's also the weakest part of the larger story.  Again, I can't really get into it without spoiling things, the events that play out are just way too clean and coincidental.  You can see how it's going to play out from a mile away, and ends the film on a bad note.  It doesn't help that the two characters that are the focus of the third act, played by Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan, are the weakest and least interesting of the film.  It's not an issue with the performances, as much as it is with the story itself.  I will say, however, that Cohen speaks with a ridiculous Long Island accent, when neither of his parents do, and it just makes his character that much more unbelievable.  Also, another thing I thought was weak about the third act was they didn't do a particularly good job of aging the characters, outside of adding a few patches of grey hair here and there.

It's a shame it ends on such a bad note, because I felt the movie had been going along pretty well until that third act.  It's close to two and a half hours though, and any of these acts could have been movies all on their own.  As much as I liked the second act, it felt like they rushed through the conclusion of it, and it was already a little cliched.  I've often criticised a film for having too many writers, and this one has three: director Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, and Darius Marder.  Each act feels like they were written by different people, and then tied loosely together.  The story is a little too ambitious for a single film.  I can't help but think this would have been great as a show or miniseries on HBO, similar to The Wire.

Pines is another one of those movies where characters don't always say much, and you see a lot of meaningful staring into the distance.  This usually means the music needs to stand out, and I thought this had a really haunting score.  I had to look up who did the music only to find out it was done by Mike Patton.  Mike Patton?  Of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More?  I never would have guessed he was involved.

I also enjoyed the aged, gritty look of the film.  I don't think they ever make a point to tell you when this movie occurs, but you get the feeling it's in the recent past.  The themes of the film though could be told in any setting though.

Pines has very good performances across the board, but I didn't think anyone was really stretching out of their comfort zones.  Again, Gosling basically plays a tatted up version of the same character he played in Drive, Ray Liotta plays another crooked cop, and Dane Dehan plays another awkward, angsty teen.  Eva Mendes only pops up here and there, and Rose Byrne is pretty much forgotten about by the third act.  That's also an issue in that there's so much story, not all of the characters are well developed.

The Place Beyond the Pines is an ambitious, well-acted story, but ultimately lets the viewer down with a disappointing third act. It's length makes it something that may be a little too much for casual viewers, even I started to squirm in my seat towards the end, but it's worth a watch...on DVD.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Gangster Squad (2013) - Movie Review

Gangsters shoot about as well as Stormtroopers.

Here's an example of when a movie 'based off true events' misses the mark.  In Gangster Squad we follow a task force created to stop gangster Mickey Cohen's criminal organization.

Set back in the late 1940's, Cohen (Sean Penn) was a ruthless gangster that the LAPD was in danger of losing the city to.  It didn't help that many local police forces were on his payroll, and just as much a part of the problem as the gangsters were. Chief Bill Parker (a super gravelly Nick Nolte), puts John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) in charge of putting together a small, 'off the books' task force to stop Cohen.  O'Mara is an honest, but tough minded cop, and is told that he doesn't simply want Cohen killed, but he wants his organization destroyed to the point where any other gangster would be scared off from trying to swoop in after Cohen is gone.

Normally a movie like Gangster Squad is right up my alley.  It's slick looking, has a good cast, and I generally love stories about gangsters, especially when based off real people.  However, the whole time while I'm watching I can't quite figure out why it wasn't clicking for me.  After a bloody opening, I thought it was going to be the kind of violent crime drama that I enjoy, but it all felt very tame somehow.  Maybe because when I compare it to something like Django Unchained the violence didn't have the same kind of impact to it.

The story itself is also very thin and there's not a lot of depth to any of the characters.  They try to show that some of the squad members are conflicted over the level of violence they are using to stop the bad guys, and is there really any difference between the police and the gangsters, but they don't really go into it too much.  Will Beall's script was based off a book Tales from the Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman, and neither he or the book have an entry on Wikipedia, so that ought to tell you something about how popular or critically acclaimed that book is.  If you're gonna base your 'based on true events' movie off a book, maybe you should go with one people have heard of.  I'm a little nervous now that Beall is attached to both the upcoming Justice League movie and the next Lethal Weapon.  I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

There's also a love story between squad member Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) and Cohen's girlfriend Grace (Emma Stone). As much as I like Gosling and Stone, I felt they were both miscast here.  Stone seemed too young and innocent to play the kind of sexy the role needed, not that there was much to the role in the first place.  Gosling's voice had a weird affectation to it where it he sounded like he was sucking on helium in between takes, and his voice wasn't consistent through the film.  I think the biggest missed opportunity between these two was that the great chemistry they demonstrated in Crazy, Stupid, Love was all but gone here.

A movie is only as good as its bad guy, but Sean Penn's Cohen wasn't very effective.  It didn't help that they put him in ridiculous looking makeup and spoke with a overdone accent that made him feel more like a Dick Tracy villain than a real person.  It also doesn't help the realism that even with the makeup, Penn doesn't look anything like Mickey Cohen.

Mickey Cohen, 1949.  The resemblance
 to Sean Penn is uncanny, huh?

Looking at that picture, you'd think that someone like Joe Pesci or even Bob Hoskins would be a better fit.

Gangster Squad is another movie where the bad guys with automatic weapons can't hit shit, but the good guys are all crack shots.  It's like they all went to the Stormtrooper school of marksmanship.  This allows a group of just five people to take on and defeat a much larger force of gangsters.  It's not like they employed any kind of tactics to give them the upper hand either.  The bad guys even make it easy on them by refusing to take any kind of cover when being shot at or just run right up to them as they're being fired upon.

Between the over-the-top performance of Sean Penn and the silliness of his henchmen, I couldn't figure out if this was meant to be a serious drama, or if they were going for more of a humorous angle.  Confusing this further was that this was directed by Ruben Fleischer, who was on more of a comedic track with his previous films, Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less.  He's still one of my favorite up-and-coming directors, but he probably wasn't the best choice to direct if the intent was to make as serious crime drama.  I do think he did a good job with the look of the film, which was it's strength.

Gangster Squad is an example of a movie that's all style and no substance.  It's normally the type of film I eat up, but I didn't find it all that creative or original.  It wastes a talented cast with a very pedestrian story that can nobody can rise above.  It's ultimately pretty forgettable, but it's not a bad rental when you want to kill two hours.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars