Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam and others
Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam and others
Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam and others
Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam and others
Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok's criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother's recent death. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Burke and others
This movie overall came across as a pretty pointless one to me. I
mean, what is it trying to do or say with its story? Most of the times
it feels that the story is going nowhere and it also never really
reaches a very satisfying conclusion with anything.
Main reason why this really isn't the most engaging or interesting
movie to watch is due to its main character, that just isn't a very
likable one. He's a scoundrel, who uses women for either pleasure or to
gain more power. Movies like this could still work out but you need to
have a charismatic and likable enough main lead and character in it, to
allow it to work out. Something that, lets say, movies like "Catch Me
If You Can", "Dangerous Liaisons" and "Barry Lyndon" all pulled off. I
am not saying that Robert Pattinson is a bad actor but he doesn't have
the right required charisma or star-power, which this movie and his
character needed.
There also is a political plot line in the movie, that feels like I
should have been the main focus of the movie but instead it's more of a
subplot, that gets neglected for most part, until it's final 30 minutes
or so, when it's just too late to start caring about it. It makes the
story a sort of messy one, that's lacking a good main focus and it's
perhaps also part of the reason why the final minutes of this movie
feel incredibly rushed. And really, what does the ending say? It's one
of those endings that's not even an ending really, since nothing really
got resolved. It's just the beginning of a new chapter, that you'll
never get to see. Far from satisfying, in my opinion but maybe the
novel by Guy de Maupassant, on which this movie got based, provides
some more answers.
As far as these type of costumed dramas go, it's still not the worst
and also not the worst looking one. The sets, costumed and such are all
decent enough, though it's nothing that is going to blow you away. It's
obvious this was a somewhat cheaper film to make.
It has some many good and well known actors in it, just not the type of
actor that makes you want to go run out to see it. Uma Thurman, Kristin
Scott Thomas, Christina Ricci and Colm Meaney are all decent enough
actors in this but you feel that at least one of them should have had
one big emotional, dramatic or tense scene, in which he/she could show
off their acting skills and range. The movie never really its actors
very well, making this also an ultimately shallow movie experience.
Really can't say that it's one of the worst movies I have ever seen but
everything about it still feels incredibly meh. No good emotions, no
interesting drama, no intriguing developments but above all things; no
charismatic and likable enough main lead it.
It's perhaps easier to simply make fun of this movie but it's in my
opinion ridicules to call this a bad movie as well. Yes, it's all a bit
drawn out at times, making this movie feel overlong and overall
pointless but it's all actually being very consistent with the style of
film-making and the approach they were going for with this movie. Basically this movie is being like an old fashioned epic, with grand
looking landscapes and a bigger than life story, or in this case love
story, in which everything moves slowly but steadily. As often is the
case with this type of movies, it's hard to get into at first, since it
doesn't really become apparent, right from the start on already, which
direction the story will be heading at. But once things are starting to
take form and it becomes more clear what the story is going for, it
becomes an engaging movie, as also truly was the case with this movie. I really loved it how things slowly started to take shape within this
movie. It also made it more apparent what an actual good and original
story this movie has in it. It's not being too complicated either,
which makes this movie all the more engaging to watch. No, this really
is far from being pretentious genre movie, though it still has some
pretentious tendencies in it, especially when it comes down to its
acting and characters. Let me just say I wasn't too fond of all the performances in this movie
and that goes for Ralph Fiennes' as well. He actually somewhat annoyed
me, which is something that Fiennes had never achieved before, at least
not with me. I truly think he is one of the best living and still
working actors around but in this movie he went for an approach I just
didn't liked very well. But really, it might also be very well due to his character and the
writing of the movie that I couldn't really appreciate his performance.
His character, in my opinion, isn't being likable enough and the love
story he gets himself involved in also isn't exactly my idea of a
romantic one. Nothing cute about a love story that involves infidelity
and it prevented me from rooting for its main characters and for them
to end up being together. But OK, I get it. Love just happens sometime, no matter what the place
or the circumstances are. And then again, the love story in this movie
was never meant to be a happy or careless one, in which everything
works out peachy perfect. And that's actually what saved it and made
this movie work for me, once I started to realize all of that. It also
definitely makes this an original romantic movie, also since the
romance itself is often hard to find in the movie. Please don't mistake
this movie for a chick-flick, or something like that, since the movie
and its story have far more to offer and often goes for a far from
typical romantic approach with things. There are also plenty of other things happening in this movie. It
doesn't just follow 2 main characters but it has a wide variety of
characters in it, each with their own thing going on. It gives the
movie plenty of welcome distractions and often helps to give the movie
and some of its themes more depth as well. It's also a nice touch that
the movie is basically following 2 plot lines, one set in the 'present'
and one in the past, all linked together by its main character, played
by Ralph Fiennes. This also helps to give the movie some variety and
helps to keep the story moving and it's being a good way for the movie
to have some mystery and surprises in it as well. Just as good as any other genre movie from the earlier days of the
genre, in my opinion! 8/10 Watch trailer
