Only God Forgives was one of my most anticipated films of 2013. I was such a huge fan of Nicolas Winding Refn's previous film Drive, which also starred Ryan Gosling, that I couldn't wait to see what he had in store next. The news for Only God Forgives was certainly not flowing. In fact, an official trailer for the film was released just a month before its release. I wasn't disappointed in the trailer. It looked like a slick film and the trailer was punctuated by a really cool quote by Gosling. He walks up to a guy on the street and calmly asks, "Wanna' fight?"

That line alone hints that we'd be in store for some good old fashioned head bashing. Alas, the film is almost completely devoid of action. And the fight scenes that the trailer hints at are nonexistent. The most disappointing part is that when Gosling's character finally squares off for the climactic brawl, he wholeheartedly gets his ass handed to him. What the...?

Gosling plays Julian, a drug-smuggler who also manages Thai boxers. When Julian's brother is murdered, it's up to Julian to seek vengeance. The only problem is that Julian's not that into it. That is until his mother, played by Kristen Scott Thomas in a role that seems like it was created for the simple goal of ending up on "Best Villains of All Time" lists, forces him to do the deed.

Thomas' character almost doesn't seem to fit in a film with such subtle characters and minimalist filmmaking. She's so over-the-top that you have to wonder if she walked on to the wrong set. Her character is more one dimensional that a Xerox copy.

The biggest problem I have with Only God Forgives is that it was trying so hard to be cool. It's like Refn's sole objective while making the movie was to have college aged film buffs quoting lines from his film while walking around campus wearing a white t-shirt. Instead what we got was an overly pretentious, self indulgent film that was all style over substance.

Don't get me wrong, the film looks great. You can tell that every scene was painstakingly framed and lit. This is where the film really does succeed. The cinematography is truly fantastic as well as the set design and lighting. It's some of the best production values you will see in a film all year. The first half of the film is bathed in a red hue. It might get to be annoying to some, and I'm not sure there was an actual reason for this. Is it supposed to represent the rage building in Julian or the bloodbath that's about to ensue?

We might never know because Only God Forgives doesn't really seem interested in creating much of a story. In fact, there's not a whole lot of dialogue in the film. Most scenes consist of mind-numbingly slow tracking shots, or zoom ins. Or moments where Gosling just stares at the camera. Like the director is saying, "Look at him. He's so cool I don't even have to give him anything to say and he's still awesome."

Like Drive before it, Forgives is extremely violent, maybe more so. The main difference is that in Only God Forgives, the violence seems unnecessary and gratuitous. Many times Forgives fails where Drive succeeds, Drive was just a cool film. It didn't seem like it was trying to be cool, it just was.

Only God Forgives is trying so hard to be cool and stylish that it's almost embarrassing. Directors like Tarantino and Scorsese created films and characters that were cool because they were just damn cool. It wasn't a predestined objective. Once Refn realizes that there is more to filmmaking than perfectly composing and lighting a shot or casting one of the best looking male leads working today and having him stare into the camera with brooding indifference, then he will become a great director.