New film by Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of Drive.
The trailer paints an impressive picture:
Julian runs a kickboxing venue in Bangkok that is a front for his drug smuggling operation. He runs it in conjunction with his older brother Billy. Billy kills a teenage hooker. The hooker's father is brought by a creepy policeman to the hotel where it happened, and is told he can do whatever he wants to Billy. He beats Billy to death. The policeman then takes the father out to a secluded area and cuts one of his arms off. The policeman does this because the father is still responsible for what he did, and so that the father will keep a better watch on his other daughters.
Julian is then forced by his mother to get revenge on the men responsible for his brother's death. The director keeps showing us Julian's hands throughout the film. Through various forms of imagery we are told that Julian has blood on his hands. He is reluctant to act in violence, but when he does there is an obvious rage seething just underneath his skin. We are eventually told where this comes from, but I won't spoil that here.
Nicolas Winding Refn is most certainly an artist. Every shot of the movie was beautiful. I wish the rest of the movie could live up to the imagery. The man responsible for the beauty of this film (Refn definitely had a hand in it, but cannot take the majority of the praise) worked on several Stanley Kubrick films. There are a multitude of scenes here that harken to Eyes Wide Shut. Previous Refn films also showed a Kubrickian influence (I'm looking at you Bronson).
His art is also in the existentialism of the script. Unfortunately, the script can't hold a candle to the imagery. Julian only speaks 22 lines of dialogue in the whole film. Ryan Gosling spends most of the movie with a blank look on his face. I think we are supposed to project ourselves onto him, but the film is too strange and too hard to follow to make the feasible. Also, the film is littered with sequences that aren't really happening. It becomes difficult in the end to say what did happen in this movie, and what didn't.
Vithaya Pansringarm plays the cop - Chang - to incredible effect. He is creepy as hell. Refn says he would whisper in Pansringarm's ear before shooting a scene, "You are God." His character, if God, is certainly an Old Testament God. This guy needs to be in more movies, but how to fit a creepy middle-aged Thai man into more movies I don't know. He was in the Hangover II as the priest at the wedding. Anyway, this guy has chops.
Refn is a self-stated pornographer when it comes to violence. The violence in this movie is stark, if not as frequent as in some of his other films. If violence is your thing, or if you want to see some other movies by Refn (and you should), then check out the following movies:
The Pusher trilogy ***
Bronson ****(*)
Valhalla Rising ***
He really shouldn't be judged by this movie alone. You will notice I didn't recommend Drive. Lots of people liked Drive. I didn't. The work of an auteur is difficult. They have to balance their art with commercial appeal. Hopefully these last two films are a misstep and not a sign of further things to come for Refn. Because of the beauty of the imagery, and for Pansringarm's creepy performance, I give this movie ** 2 stars.
Last time I checked Bronson was available on Netflix instant streaming. It is the movie that brought Tom Hardy to the attention of Christopher Nolan. Here is a trailer.
I remember Tom Hardy back when he was an evil clone of Captain Picard.
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