Review: ‘Bangkok Dangerous’

Jeremy:

Okay, can we all agree that Nicolas Cage needs a new hair stylist?   Is that out of the way?   Good.

As far as action films go, ‘Bangkok Dangerous’ has nothing really new to offer.   Anyone who has seen more than a few John Woo or Johnny To films will pretty much know where the action is leading right from the get-go.   Hardened assassin goes to Bangkok for one last job.   Hardened assassin has all these rules to live by.   Hardened assassin, for completely nonsensical reasons, decides to break said rules.   The proverbial “s” hits the “f”.   Bullets whiz, things explode, and people die.

Danny and Oxide Pang directed the film, a remake to their 1999, Thai film of the same name.   It’s always interesting to see a foreign director come to the states and make a remake of one of their previous films.   You can’t distill the typical hatred for all remakes when this happens.   You just have to trust the filmmakers that they know what they’re doing.   Look to Michael Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’ for another example of this.

There is plenty to like about ‘Bangkok Dangerous’.   The film doesn’t seem to have been Americanized or dumbed down for casual movie goers.   The action is decently staged.   There are a few set pieces that work very well.

The first half of the film is pretty slow, but it’s never boring.   It takes its time building up characters and situations so that when things do start to get destroyed, there’s something to care about.

What really doesn’t work is the main character, played by Nic Cage, and his motivation for breaking his own rules.   He’s not in Bangkok for ten minutes before he decides to take on his local errand boy as a student and for not particular reason other than the kid asks him to train him.   I don’t buy the whole “I saw myself in him” narration that accompanies this plot point.   On that note, the overall narration could have been done away with all together.   It provides nothing that couldn’t have been spelled out in a different way, and hearing Cage’s voice is akin to taking an Ambien before trying to run through mud.

On top of that, this seemingly badass killer-for-hire falls for the first cute, Thai woman to smile at him.   The killer walks into a pharmacy, sees this cute girl, she bats her eyes, and before you can say “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble”, this guy’s ready to throw it all away for her.   That whole subplot got on my nerves.   Every time it jumped back to that story, I cringed.   It offers absolutely nothing to the story.   It literally could have been excised from the film and the rest of the film would have worked just fine.   The girl, a deaf mute, no less, so we really feel sorry for her, is never even in any danger.   The bad guys who turn on the assassin near the end, no spoiler warning necessary, as it’s pretty obvious where that’s going, don’t even make mention of her.   There is simply no point for her to be in the film.

But, if you can look past that and just accept the fact that he makes friends with this “student” of his, than ‘Bangkok Dangerous’ is a film worth enjoying.   The final action sequence is really well done as is a chase scene through a floating market.   For action fans, there is plenty of carnage and blood-letting to be had in the last half of this film.   Cage is fine.   He’s replaceable and that narration gets on your nerves, but he never seems to be totally out of place here.

The story is nothing new and it’s pretty predictable.   The assassin is in town for four hits.   Before the fourth one is revealed, there is a small aside about this politician who is wholly good, so you know that last hit is going to be him.   The direction is well done.   The acting is fine.   The film’s few flaws are kind of difficult to look past.   If you can, however, than you could do a whole lot worse than ‘Bangkok Dangerous’.

[rating: 3/5]

Travis:

I guess there’s something almost fail-safe about assassin movies that allows for them to repeatedly walk away from audiences relatively unscathed. ‘Bangkok Dangerous’ is yet another film of this type that neither succeeds or fails… it’s just sort of there, saying “Hello, I’m here. I’m nothing special, but feel free to watch me because I’m not that bad either.”

The interesting element of the story for me is the part that takes place behind the camera. The Pang brothers are responsible for this new Nicolas Cage action flick, but they’re also responsible for the 1999 Thai original. No, I haven’t seen the original yet, but I determined to now… I would bet it’s more satisfying and far less numbing than the Hollywood remake. What baffles me is that the filmmakers decided not only to remake their own film, but also made it Hollywood-style. I suppose they wanted to try and pad their bankroll with the often undemanding average American audience.

The story follows Joe (Nic Cage), a presumably American assassin who the Russians swear by, landing one last big job… four heads in one city, Bangkok, Thailand. Joe has decided this may be his last job to retire on, following his own rule that if you start thinking about quiting that’s a sign to stop while you’re ahead. As is his SOP, Joe recruits one street-smart schmuck named Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to be his errand boy and messenger. As Joe cruises through the first two “jobs” as if they were cake walks, he finds himself blind-sided by a shy and attractive Thai woman in a pharmacy who happens to be deaf and mute, which appears to be part of her appeal for Joe. This, naturally leads to problems as Joe’s luck begins to run out and his third job gets extremely messy. Joe finds himself suddenly breaking all of his rules and must struggle with whether to pull   himself together or call it quits, especially when he learns that his fourth and final job isn’t what he’d expected.

‘Bangkok Dangerous’ isn’t a bad movie. In fact, I though it was rather enjoyable up until the ending. Sorry… not going to tell you how it ends, but I will say that it’s not “how” it ended that bothered me as much as the manner in which the ending was executed. [No pun intended.] As a whole, this was a wonderfully photographed film, utilizing a nice neon/fluorescent color palate throughout to really set the mood for the Bangkok landscape. The action was actually a plus and Cage manages to pull off the role as usual, so long as you understand up front that this is another “Nic Cage as…” performance.

[rating:3/5]