Friday, September 5, 2008

Movie review: Bangkok Dangerous

When the clock strikes, so does Joe.

By John P. Meyer

Bangkok Dangerous

The life of an anonymous assassin takes an unexpected turn when he travels to Thailand to complete a series of contract killings. Joe a remorseless hitman, is in Bangkok to execute four enemies of a ruthless crime boss named Surat. He hires Kong, a street punk and pickpocket, to run errands for him with the intention of covering his tracks by killing him at the end of the assignment. Strangely, Joe, the ultimate lone wolf, instead finds himself mentoring the young man while simultaneously being drawn into a tentative romance with a local shop girl. As he falls further under the sway of Bangkok's intoxicating beauty, Joe begins to question his isolated existence and let down his guard …just as Surat decides it's time to clean house

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Bangkok Dangerous

Here's yet another instance of a perfectly serviceable foreign film getting remade as an American language version for U.S. audiences. In the case of Bangkok Dangerous, the Pang Brothers (Oxide and Danny) attempt to breath English-language box office life into one of their own films - for the second time.

Nic Cage, who just can't seem to get enough on-screen motorcycle riding, gets to do more of it here as a low-profile, high-dollar hitman named Joe who has four rules: 1) don't ask questions; 2) don't get involved with the locals; 3) know when it's time to get out; and 4) ride a lot of motorcycles. While blazing away with a Mac 10, preferably.

Joe has just completed a contract hit in Prague (in the execution of which he times his sniper shot to coincide with the on-hour clanging of a church bell) and is pulling up stakes for Bangkok, where he's been hired to do four jobs for an anonymous client. Before leaving town, though, he ties up some loose ends with extreme prejudice, if you take my meaning. (Let's just say his local functionaries are dragging down the actuarial table numbers.)

We are made to understand, through first person narration supplied by our protagonist, that this is an established pattern for Joe: get into town, get the job done, call to check on the wire transfer and check the heck out. Slick as a Teflon sabot round.

"I'll gladly pay you Thursday for a cased sniper rifle today."

But in Bangkok, for some inexplicable reason (he's getting sentimental in his advancing middle age, perhaps? A bout of bird flu?), Tiger Joe changes into new stripes and starts relating in a non-professional way to both his disposable Bangkok assistant (Shahkrit Yamnarm, as Kong) and the pretty, perky Thai lady (Charlie Yeung, as Fon) who helps him out at the pharmacy after he sustains a minor flesh wound.

Thus, in the midst of carrying out his current quota of kills, Joe is simultaneously dating the delicate and delightful Fon (dropping by to meet her mother, no less) and providing impromptu knife-fighting training to his personal go-fer and ersatz student assassin, Kong. Their "never lower your guard" routine is amusingly reminiscent of the Cato and Clouseau shtick.

Cage sports coal-black stringy shoulder-length hair and seems enamored of the snipering approach whereby one assembles his rifle from components stored in a carry case - including a snap-on scope - then RUSHES to the shooting platform (i.e., window) to get off a shot before anyone working anti-sniper duty can spot him. Never mind that there's no way a scope thusly attached could hit anywhere near point of aim, except by coincidence.

Machine gun goes: "Buddha, Buddha, Buddha."

He also carries out a full-auto Mac attack on a target's limousine in the midst of Bangkok traffic, which only succeeds because the hapless mobster hasn't bothered to invest a few hundred thousand baht on bulletproof window glass.

There are a couple of clever set pieces (the eerily silent mugging; the elegant anti-Hollywood ending), and the cinematography displays snatches of competence (if not brilliance), using shadow and angle and selective lighting to good effect. However, the big river chase segment employing longtail powerboats pales in comparison to other versions of the same scene we've - um - seen in other films, such as a Bond movie whose specific identity I can't call to mind at present. (Or was it one of the Mission Impossibles? Whatever...)

"I'll just slap this scope on here real quick like and head on over to the windowsill."

Worst of all is the extravagant quantity of navel gazing that's left in the final cut of this cinematic narrative, with Joe reliving his worst bad experiences while peering through the Bushnell; and Joe flashing back to the happy times he's had in Bangkok at a pivotal moment during the story's climax. (This "moment" drags on for about five minutes.) A little of this ham-handed reflection would have gone a mighty long way, and in this package we're subjected to a surfeit of it.

AND SO IS THIS MOVIE: "Bangkok is corrupt, dirty and dense." - Joe's narration

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