Only God Forgives

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Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review, where this week we’re taking a neon-lit, blood-soaked trip through the moody underworld of Bangkok with Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives (2013). If you thought Drive was a stylish slow burn, this one cranks up the stillness, strips back the dialogue, and drops you into a hallucinatory revenge opera that’s equal parts mesmerizing and maddening.

Ryan Gosling stars as Julian, a quiet, emotionally blank drug smuggler running a Muay Thai gym as a front in Bangkok. When his volatile brother Billy is murdered for committing an unspeakable crime, their monstrous mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) arrives in town demanding vengeance. Julian is reluctantly pulled into a spiral of violence and surreal symbolism, facing off against Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), a sword-wielding police lieutenant who dispenses his own brutal, godlike justice.

 Refn drenches the screen in glowing reds and deep shadows, pairing every scene with an eerie, droning score from Cliff Martinez. The film is light on plot and even lighter on dialogue—Gosling speaks fewer than 20 lines—but the atmosphere is thick enough to cut with a katana.

Only God Forgives is a fever dream of a film—icy cold yet visually scorching. It’s like a revenge thriller that’s been put through a Lynchian blender, leaving behind a hushed, haunted meditation on masculinity, vengeance, and judgement. If you want action, go elsewhere. If you want mood and madness, step right in.

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