Why the one star reviews? It's obvious. Hardly any dialogue, hardly any acting, Ultra violent, totally without cathartic potential. Distant. Alien.
5 stars? Peter Bradshaw praises the production design, the cinematography, the mixture of bad taste, subtlety and vivid visuals, the visceral emotional response it pulls out of you(?), the back story (gosling and his brother and their mum are 'very bad people',apparently), the supernatural-like police officer character Chang.
Bradshaw could have done without making that link to Shakespeare as well as making too much of the films 'formal brilliance' but he's right to praise the film for being art and not just celluloid consumptive fodder.
Having established that it's art then, what is it about (the art rather than the plot) and is it any good (the film not the art)? I'm afraid simply being art doesn't get you off 'that' hook.
In answer to the first question Refn seems to be very intent that the camera does all the talking; an idea as straightforward as it is revolutionary. This seems to be behind the visual virtuosity and the lack of dialogue. So stylistically it owes much to animated features or even quattrocento icon painting which was designed to present the bible to illiterate people. The plot as Refn tells us is a 'western' but told from the point of view of the 'outlaw' gang, with whom we sympathise because they are 'westerners' (I.e Americans) a in a foreign country. This is the most interesting aspect of the film (as even the 'visual virtuosity' thing has been done in different ways by other directors (Mann, Del Torro, even Paulo Sorrentino). The hero is actually the fearsome creepy retired policeman Chang, but his code of ethics (presumably Thai) is alien to us and we can only identify with parts of it (he chastises the father of a murdered prostitute for allowing his daughter to become a prostitute but than cuts off his arm (as if the brutal death of his daughter was not punishment enough). So we think to ourselves maybe a man who encourages his daughter to become a prostitute for economic reasons on the dangerous streets of Bangkok, isnt particularly 'punished' by the loss of a cash cow that was probably on borrowed time- daughter or no-, particularly when he has another 3 daughters, as Chang reminds him when he chopped off his arm. Thus as westerners we are being critiqued as we watch this film. As the film unfolds we find that a bloated, decadent, corrosive western culture (something that is only reinforced by the pseudo erotic tension between Scott-Thomas' -well cast- and her sons ) is being critiqued.
So is it good. In retrospect yes but it's not an enjoyable film, although it has its moments. The visual brilliance (which includes the violence) suits the 'academic' film watchers like Bradshaw -who want to nod and wink at fellow thesp connesieurs- as well as it does the high-violence thresholders, but it's a trap. These are not solitary 'cock-a-snooks' but essential elements in the strategy of alinenation that underpins the film. Those who realise that the visual style , and lack of dialogue doesn't really work, that Gosling doesn't really do very much in the film (Evans would have been interesting simply because of how he looks), and doesn't convince us of his essential internalised rage (again Evans natural features may have communicated that better), but instead comes across as a sad damaged little boy.
The fact Chang's 'arc' through the film comes as a genuine shock, tells us much about our cultural prejudice . We are forced to consider which is the greater crime; violently killing a few bad people with whom we identify, allowing the drug business to continue by letting our western rogues off lightly(not to mention letting them get away with murder). Again our western prejudices are highlighted one only has to recall the predictable shock when some 'poor' British girl faces the death penalty for trying to smuggle drugs out of some eastern country. It may be Ryan Gosling and Scott Thomas are both appealing but they're also bad, not loveable rogues, not noble savages....just bad. In fact Bradshaw is wrong about the who comes out of it well. Chang has stopped the death and misery that comes with the drug trade via his 'sword of justice' and Gosling seems to recognise the decadence his family embodies by the end if the film, perhaps changed for the better by his life in Bangkok (that's not very western like...the bad guys should simply be bad-but this redemptive quality is perhaps the one familiar celluloid consumptive trope that Refn allowed himself so that he could avoid completely alienating the watcher. Mai, is perhaps the one thing in the film we can relate to, but that isn't the same as saying she's comes out of the story well (as Bradshaw says), and it isn't saying much.
So this is a film about film and about culture as depicted by film, it's difficult watch in that takes us to an alien place and uses alien -if insisting that the camera takes primacy can be called alien- means. Perhaps Refn is also trying to say that formulaic plots have corrupted the purity of film as much as glamourised gangsters have corrupted western culture. Maybe. Here I am questioning my values. That's the films triumph because that seems to be most art can aspire to nowadays.
And just to return to that formal brilliance, scenes from the film stay with you because of it but it depends on who you are, it tells you what you actually engaged with in the film. For me it was 'the' fight scene.... Again totally unexpected.
