The
directing and acting duo of Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling re-team to
give us a film so violent that audiences at Cannes booed. This
slow burning drama (thriller?) builds and seems to go nowhere but the build is
very fascinating if a bit odd to behold. It’s a revenge film
but which character in the story is going to find their
justice? Gosling plays a drug smuggler who co-runs a
kickboxing gym to hide his drug trade. His partner and brother brutally
rapes and kills an underage hooker only to suffer a beating to the death
himself from the girl’s father. The brothers’ mother, played
with cold fury by Kristen Scott Thomas, arrives wanting the police officer in
charge of letting her son get murdered be killed too. Let’s just say the
Thai police officer, played by Vithaya Pansringarm, is the kind of badass you
don’t mess with. There’s a lot to praise about this movie and
a lot to criticize. Pansringarm and Thomas are brilliant.
The scenes where Pansringarm performs karaoke have such an eerie quality it’s
intoxicating. This fight scene is the best moment of the
film. As for Thomas, I’d add her on the list of the best evil mothers in
cinema for certain; she is ruthless even if she is out of her
element. Gosling on the other hand is weak. His
character is boring to watch, a very distant performance that could have been
so much more interesting. This is disappointing because I
respect him as an actor and I can see what he might have been trying to create
but the result feels lazy, almost as if he didn’t care. With
the ending of the film, all I can say is that it left me wanting more.
It’s the same feeling I had with Refn’s last film, Drive. Just
when I expect the film to jump into overdrive, it ends. This isn’t really
a spoiler but a warning not to expect a typical climax. I respect this
film for taking chances and its dedication to director Jodorowsky but I think
it could have been so much better. Grade: B
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