As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn. He makes weird, intense and visually stunning films. Refn teams up again with Ryan Gosling for Only God Forgives and after loving Drive to death I was really excited to see this. I don’t know what I just watched.

I have the absolute reverse view on this than I do Drive. Everything I liked about Drive was absent here. Weird as hell, unreliable characters. A story that has some good ideas but does little more than just spin its wheels with so little going on. While the cinematography is there, this probably would have made a better half hour short film.

Ryan Gosling plays Julian, a drug smuggler who operates in Bangkok. His awful brother gets into trouble and gets what’s coming to him. Julian’s awful mother pushes him to avenge his brother’s death which leads to nothing good. Julian is a weird, stoic guy, much like the Drive character. But all the weird traits for Driver worked in that world and had great payoffs. He was a bad ass with morals and a goal I could root for. I didn’t get any of that from Only God Forgives.

I’m left scratching my head, one of the biggest disappointments for me this year.