Whoa, did some graphics arts guy splice a
Nicolas Cage profile onto a The Fast and the
Furious poster? No, it’s a new movie called
Bangkok Dangerous, filled with gunfights,
explosions, and everything else Nicolas Cage
likes to do when he’s not being The Weather
Man.
Not knowing anything about it going in, one
would expect nothing more than a film filled
with macho gun-slinging scenes that the all-too-done-
before poster depicts. And, rest assured,
you will not be disappointed in the levels of
machismo. However, underneath all the noise
and shrapnel lays a little bit of heart — a story,
of a man Joe (Nicolas Cage) who aspires to
escape a long life of being an invisible assassin.
Now, with four final hits to do in Bangkok, he
has his chance. He’ll take the money from the
hits and disappear from his infamous movie
character career (e.g. the assassins of Kill Bill, The
Bourne Trilogy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Road to Perdition,
Collateral, and so on).
Of course, something goes wrong, because
otherwise we wouldn’t have a story. Joe meets
that something in the form of a love interest. Her
name is Fon (Charlie Yeungat), an employee of a
local Bangkok pharmacy who helps Joe tend his
latest wound. To Joe’s surprise, Fon is deaf and
unable to speak. This temporary barrier draws
him closer to her as the two outsiders’ lives
collide. As Joe falls more in love, his attention
to his work fades and he starts getting sloppy.
Is it worth checking out? Well, if you have free
movie passes that expire this week, then sure...
Bangkok Dangerous offers a few things worth
seeing. There’s the whole generation hand-off
theme as Joe teaches his young assistant Kong
(Shahkrit Yamnarm) his complex killing trade,
and the film does explore some interesting
views with the camera (though, if you like
the color red, skip this film, because it doesn’t
appear throughout the entire 99 minute running
time; it’s a very blue movie).
IMDb gives it a “6.2,” but that’s just being polite;
anything over a five would be too generous. But,
for a modern day action movie, it definitely
could’ve been worse. Sylvester Stallone could
have starred in it and it could have been called
Rambo: Bangkok.
