Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2014

“A Ryan Gosling movie by the visionary who directed him in Drive?  I have to see that,” you may tell yourself. Resist. This joyless corpse of a movie is a brutal, meaningless, torture-porn tale of underworld retribution that starts with the butchering of a Bangkok hooker and centers on a sadistic, karaoke-loving, sword-wielding, Thai ex-cop who, we are told, is a God surrogate. Mai dee! (It’s half in Thai.) Gosling’s catatonic, and Kristin Scott Thomas’s risible mugging as a foul-mouthed, drug-dealing mommy is plain risible.  Worse, it’s fatally dull. Couldn’t wait for the ugly thing to be over. (90 min)