Bangkok Dangerous

Synopsis

Bangkok Dangerous is a remake of the 1999 film by the same name. Nicholas Cage (National Treasure) stars as Joe, a lone hitman without guilt whose job is to kill four enemies of a callous Bangkok crime boss named Surat. He hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm, Belly of the Beast), a street punk and petty thief, to be his runner, with intentions to execute Kong when the hit jobs are done. Strangely, Joe gets a soft spot for a local shop girl. With Joe’s guard down in a ruthless world of murder for hire, he may be causing himself some serious problems.

Review

Don’t think that all the action that is shown in the trailer is displayed throughout the entire film. It is not. The trailer teases with the promise of action, only for the film to let us down with more boring scenes then exciting ones. Blah blah blah. While he was rambling on about his character and his line of work, I got to thinking that Bangkok Dangerous was going to be a predictable movie—it was.

Cage plays Joe, a solo assassin who follows certain rules to do his hits quick and clean so he can get his cash-money and roll out. No one knows who he is and he likes to keep it that way—sort of. He does get lonely sometimes. So Joe here travels to Bangkok to make a nice slug of money by doing four hits in a short time. There’s competition in the underworld of Bangkok, and the one who pays Joe to do the hit work usually wins. Joe needs a dispensable errand boy so he pays Kong (Yamnarm)—a young pickpocket eager to make a fast buck—to do the running. Kong’s a hustler with a trustworthy smile and fast hands. He’s all for making a few grand in a short time. Seemed a little weird he just trusts this foreigner when he rolls up on him and flat out asks, Want to make some money?”

Anyway, Joe’s intent is to kill Kong at the end of the assignment, like all his previous runners. As Joe begins to do the dirty work, he starts to get a little soft for unknown reasons. Don’t get me wrong, he’s ruthless when it comes to killing bad guys, but the pendulum swings wayyyyy too far in the other direction when this dude is afraid to feed a baby elephant on his date....

Yeah I said date. See during Joe’s stay he’s also captivated by a local lady pharmacist and lets his guard down. Ahhh mess. This is more dangerous than Kwame Kilpatrick with a fully charged cell phone and some hussie’s phone number. Joe’s guard doesn’t just come down a little...it becomes pretty unbelievable how many of his ”four rules” he breaks.

Oh, and I have to add, Nicholas' hair looks a hot bloody mess. Ohhh nooo. Why do they have it looking all fly away and wild? I think a nice buzz would have done him good. Or, at least throw some Paul Mitchell or some hair grease up in there and lay that mess down. He could have also done it Piper Palin's way or if he needs a more manly example to follow, perhaps he should have a buddy help him, like Bush crony Paul Wolfowitz did in this...ugh...clip.

Bangkok is a remake from a 1999 film by the same name, but does have a few changes. One of them is that Joe is NOT a deaf-mute hitman in the remake. You know domestically, Cage being a deaf-mute wouldn’t work. Even though Cage’s dialogue is boring and corny, he tells his own back-story for the set up and it makes it easier to watch him interact with Kong.

Act III was the best in this movie because throughout the beginning and middle of the feature a slow tempo maintained with a few spikes of an up beat. During those times I was thinking, “Yes…okay here we go. Here we go” only to be let down with his drawn out date scenes with the local woman. Isn’t he supposed to not get personal with any one? I thought that’s one of his rules. Ladies, we really need to get off our butts and run the free world, because according to this movie we can throw pretty much anyone off their game.

I really wanted more action. I did. I could have done less with his lovie-dovie moments and more of him working with Kong to set up the bad guys. Show me why Bangkok is soooo Dangerous. Shoot—some of the clubs looked like they were JAMMIN.

I said earlier this movie was predictable. Remorseless hitman catches feelings for some chicky babe, grows a conscious, obstacles arise, and the hunter becomes the hunted. There ya go…Bangkok Dangerous. Trust me, I didn’t spoil anything, you can capture most of this in the trailer and if you watch enough movies you will predict a lot of the movie. I can’t see too well this morning because my eyes are so sore from rolling them.

I have to say, that being a movie critic motivates me to watch suspect movies like this in theaters because I feel like I’m the canary going into the mineshaft for you all. And, today I’m fluttering back out the shaft to tell you Bangkok is too Dangerous to watch in theaters— catch this flick on DVD. It’s good for when you need a flick to watch at home. I believe some better movies will be coming out next week. Busy week ahead.

My Rating ~ 2 Reels

Audience Rating (What's Yours?)