View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Uncategorized
30 July 2013updated 14 Sep 2021 3:32pm

Why The Heat is so much better than Only God Forgives

Ryan Gilbey explains why he'd take the jubilant Sandra Bullock cop comedy over Nicholas Winding Refn's self-conscious sixth-form artiness any day of the week.

By Ryan Gilbey

It so happens that this week brings the release of one of the new films I’ve most enjoyed this year, as well as the one that has most infuriated me so far in 2013. Call it the see-saw effect. Cinematic karma. That’s the way it happens sometimes. One of those new films engages so fully with the audience that it’s like watching a live revue, with all the shambolic showboating that implies, while the other is so remote and divorced from its viewers that it exhibits symptoms of the cinematic equivalent of locked-in syndrome.

The film I loved is The Heat, a female buddy/cop movie starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. The one I detested is Only God Forgives, a sort-of revenge thriller with Ryan Gosling and Kristin Scott-Thomas. Besides occupying opposite ends of that see-saw, they don’t have much else in common, though they are both sort-of sequels: that is, sequels not in a narrative sense but in a commercial one, capitalising as they do on an earlier collaborative success between filmmaker and performer. Only God Forgives brings Gosling back under the direction of Nicolas Winding Refn, who made Drive. The Heat reunites the director Paul Feig with McCarthy, one of the stars of his hit comedy Bridesmaids (she received an Oscar nomination for her performance in the earlier film as an unapologetically ravenous member of a bridal party).

The Heat has no claims on sophistication or originality. It’s a raucous odd couple comedy about a brilliant but prissy single cop (Bullock) and her uncouth, armed-to-the-teeth partner (McCarthy). The jokes are predominantly coarse (sample Bullock line, delivered in the street to passers-by: “That is a misrepresentation of my vagina!”) but with a joyful sense of naughtiness and absurdity. McCarthy and Bullock prove themselves gods of physical comedy. The atmosphere in the cinema throughout the screening I attended was jubilant. I don’t remember a point at which I stopped laughing, though logically there must have been one. It’s a rough and ready movie (not unlike Bridesmaids) but it gets the job done.

Only God Forgives has a self-conscious sixth-form artiness. Where Drive was vacuous with a garish pop-culture “Ping!” to it, the new picture is vacuous and ponderous, heaven help us. It fancies itself a modern-day Hamlet set among US ex-pats in Bangkok. Its anti-hero, Julian (played by Gosling), is an impotent would-be avenger who cannot bring himself to kill his brother’s murderer. (The brother is played by the riveting British actor Tom Burke, who could give Gosling charisma lessons.) Kristin Scott-Thomas pops up to offer some bleach-blonde relief from the visual murk as Gosling’s taunting, incestuously-inclined mother. If we thrill to her appearance it may be because she is one of the few performers here who has been given a tangible character to play; the viewer clings to her scenes as to a rubber ring in a shipwreck. Refn bathes the film in gone-to-seed reds and lurid purples and fills it with prowling David Lynch-esque tracking shots. But this is a long way from the all-encompassing nightmares that Lynch cooks up. We can always sense Refn behind the camera, styling and posing and over-egging. He never commits fully to his own nightmarish vision.

If the film were to be taken seriously, it might feel offensive that the Thai characters are indistinct avatars of revenge or suffering, with Bangkok itself portrayed patronisingly as mythic, exotic and deadly—the sort of representation more suited to a Bond movie. But really no one comes out of this well. Not Thailand. Not the deliberately blank Gosling, whose nerve endings appear to have gone dead, and not in a dynamic Steve McQueen way either. And certainly not Refn, who is too much in love with the visions of Hell he manufactures on screen.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

The Heat opens on 31 July, Only God Forgives on 2 August.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU