Only God Forgives (2013)

[MovieGuyKyle17]

Only God Forgives is such a beautiful visual mess. The films cinematography, visuals, and music were all great and that's about it. There's not much acting at all, lots and lots of staring, and the story literally makes no sense, we actually had to look up the plot on Wikipedia after the movie. The movie has lots of slow motion and for some reason has 4 random Karaoke scenes that (besides one of the scenes) brought nothing to the plot. Another thing I don't get is why the hell during any of the karaoke scenes that no one was reacting to the events happening. The people in the crowd look like they were not even enjoying the performance they were watching. I never hated Only God Forgives, its not the worst movie of the year its still pretty bad. If they cut the slow motion, staring, and stupid karaoke the movie's run time would be cut in half. 

Grade: C

[Ozymandias]

LOL, watched this last night and its definitely one of the worst movies I've seen in recent years.  Great cinematography, thats all.

[Lordmandeep]

Considering I did not like Drive much, watching this movie was a mistake.

 

Ryan stop making films where you just don't say anything and pretend to act cool, its getting you type cast now.

[Charism]

Extreme movie.Extreme beautiful, extreme slow.But I loved it. 9/10. Wish it was more complicated, symbolism was a little too simple.

[4815162342]

Only 20 minutes in and I'm like WTF

[Sam]

I watched the movie online and hated it.D

[4815162342]

So I just finished it and basically it was like sticking your arm into a mound of pigshit in order to find a handful of gold coins.

 

A handful of nearly awesome scenes scattered amidst a sea of muck.

[Ozymandias]

So I just finished it and basically it was like sticking your arm into a mound of pigshit in order to find a handful of gold coins.

 

A handful of nearly awesome scenes scattered amidst a sea of muck.

 

This imagery reminds me of a book I read recently.

[Ezen Baklattan]

Some great shots, a solid soundtrack, and Kristen Scott Thomas is sometimes enjoyably over the top. Everything else is insufferable.

 

3/10

[Michael Gary Scott]

Lots of style but no substance. 2/5

[Lordmandeep]

This is like Tree of Life but much worse. 

[Michael Gary Scott]

Id agree with that assessment

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I quiet watching after an hour. Terrible movie. Boring and terrible acting. Beautiful shoot movie.

D 

[luna]

am i allowed to say i loved it?yet another thoroughly unconventional film from 2013 takes the atmospherics from drive much further, dispensing with the easily digestible vigilante heroics and taking us into a realm of total amorality. all music and no plot, it's understandable if there's a couple of soft parts where refn couldn't come up with a suitably awesome colour palette, but this world of failed vengeance is largely an expressionistic wonderment.

 

8/10

[mattmav45]

I must say that I'm a little surprised at all the bad hype surrounding this.  Sure, it's destined to be a bit divisive, but nonetheless I'm surprised at the outright dismissal that seems to be the norm for this film.

 

This film is more interested in creating a mood and overall atmosphere that drive the film rather than the story, and it largely succeeds.  I've heard a lot of "style over substance" claims regarding this movie, and i have to say not only is that off-base.  To truly be style over substance, there has to be no substance to the style, and I simply don't agree with that here.  In my opinion, in this case the style is the substance.  Substance can be found in the silences, the shots, the expressions, the mood, etc.  

 

Now, even with that being said, I still felt a bit cold here.  In a way, this was a somewhat frustrating and uneven watch for me.  There are scenes of pure cinema gold here amidst some mediocrity, but in the end the cinema gold is well worth it. 

 

It's not perfect, and maybe even a failure in some regard.......but damn it, at the very least it's a fascinating, ambitious failure not to be so quickly overlooked.

[AniNate]

am i allowed to say i loved it?

 

Only if you don't turn it into an attack on everyone else by saying they didn't "get it" or something like that. 

[luna]

style over substance is the most bullshit phrase ever