Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

What makes it different from others?

People are voting emotionally.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Most of the movie wasn't terrible, but the end was terrible. It made no sense at all. It literally went from me liking it overall to really wishing I turned it off before the last 5 minutes.

Joe (Nicolas Cage) is a professional hit man looking for a final job. He arrives in Bangkok to do four hits in one location for crime boss Surat. He hires local disposable hustler thief Kong. He falls for deaf pharmacist Fon. He gets each target in a briefcase. The second briefcase gets opened. Kong realizes that Joe is an assassin and asks to be trained by him.The pervasive dark blue photography gets a bit tiresome. I do like the exotic location of Bangkok and its foreign modernity. It doesn't really have the style or action to elevate this. Most of these foreign action movies have more exciting action and people expect it now. The movie is left with a cold performance from Cage and a simple assassin story. The love story doesn't take off either with such a detached character.

With "Bangkok Dangerous," Hong Kong's Pang Brothers breathed new life into an old story with a remake of their own 2000 film of the same title. While the earlier film was entirely Asian, the brothers hired American film star Nicholas Cage and reworked the original characters and story for the remake. The result is a gritty, fast moving action flick that breaks no new ground, but will hold viewers' attention with an Asian take on a familiar gangster tale.Cage is Joe, an aging professional hit man, who heads for Thailand to take on his last four assignments before retirement. A laconic loner, Cage lives by rules that dictate no personal involvement, and he routinely cleans up after a job by eliminating any co-workers. Inexplicably, Joe violates his rules in Bangkok, not only becoming friend and mentor to his assistant, Kong, played by handsome Thai actor Shahkrit Yamnarm, but also becoming romantically involved with a deaf-mute pharmacist, sensitively portrayed by Hong Kong actress Charlie Yeung. While softening his posture with Kong could be understood as a passing of the torch before his retirement, the romance with Yeung is entirely out of character, and even Cage seems uncomfortable in his scenes with the much younger actress. The pair are an odd couple, and the romance completely implausible. With Joe's lack of either Thai or sign language skills and her inability to speak or hear or understand English, viewers will wonder how they communicate at all. Needless to say, after Joe violates his own professional rules by befriending his assistant and romancing a deaf-mute pharmacist, the game changes drastically.Although some scenes were shot in the famous floating market, the seedy side of Bangkok is emphasized and figures prominently throughout the film; this is not the Bangkok of temples and palaces, and the Thai tourist board was undoubtedly displeased. The dark grainy cinematography by Decha Srimantra further emphasizes the shady side of the Thai capital. In one interesting sequence, the Pangs mimic the Zapruder footage of the Kennedy assassination to good effect. Cage gives a solid, if unexciting, performance and looks appropriately tired and pasty. Cage again proves himself an able action star and holds the film's focus; his Asian support is largely unexceptional, although both Shahkrit and Charlie are attractive performers. The Pangs have brought an Asian eye to a tired American story and gave it a fresh look. A relatively short film, "Bangkok Dangerous" should satisfy Cage fans and those seeking a fast-paced action movie, who can overlook flaws in the script and character development.

Bangkok Dangerous stars Nicolas Cage as Joe, a typical movie hit-man in a typical "one last job" story. Joe can feel himself starting to get soft and knows that it's time to get out of the game. But he goes to Bangkok for one last client, a powerful gangster who wants Joe to commit four murders. Part of Joe's routine is to get a local on his side to help with hit-man-related errands. Enter the pickpocket Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), who becomes more than just an employee for Joe. As anyone who has ever seen a movie like this before knows immediately, Joe will eventually trust Kong enough to teach him his techniques with ridiculously clichéd lessons like "You don't pull the trigger, you squeeze it." And by breaking the well-established rule that hit men aren't allowed to have friends, Joe will put them all in jeopardy. Along the way, Kong and Joe both fall in love with women along the way, the former with a dancer and the latter with a deaf-mute pharmacist who seems to be there simply to prove that she can develop more of an interesting character with no lines than Cage can with an entire script nowadays. Fast-forward to a dinner scene between the mumbling Joe and the mute object of his affection is one of the most painful scenes I've seen. The whole relationship sub-plot felt incredibly forced and showed a lack of chemistry between the two of them.Joe is not only the kind of part that the Cage of the 1990s could knock out in his sleep; it actually looks like that might be his acting technique for this particular role. And that's the big problem. I think he was miscast and I couldn't quite get his motive on this role. Bangkok Dangerous is so deadly dull that it's really not even worth writing or reading about, much less taking the time to see. The main plot of the film, the fourth hit gone wrong, doesn't really kick in until the final reel. The set-up is so slowly paced that even the critical part of my brain that could sort of recognize that the final sequence had some well-staged action was too tired to care. Cage has gone from fascinating actor to action star to cinematic valium. This film reminded me of straight-to-DVD actions films we see nowadays starring Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes or Cuba Gooding Jr.