"Bangkok Dangerous" (2008) - Movie Review

The Pang Brothers, Danny Pang Fat and Oxide Pang Chun remake their 1999 film made in Thai into an overly Americanized version. Although horrible it intrigues to see the original whose story outline sounds more promising and definitely a better picture than this version even if it turns out bad. In the review of “No Country for Old Men” by Jonathan Rosenbaum, he said that America is obsessed in the curiosity of serial killers. Hit man can be added to that. Now one can ask what is the difference and that would be the lingering conscience aiding film makers for maintaining a hero reputation despite a character in the business of taking lives.

Voice over has stooped to the bottoms of cliché in “Bangkok Dangerous” where Joe (Nicolas Cage) explains his solitary life of killing people for big money. He says it in a manner of beckoning sympathy so that we will be “Oh, look at that poor guy. He has no friends to talk with. How sad” May be he should think about it when he is killing his “trace” or the assistants he recruits during his job. He says there are four hits in Bangkok and after that he is out. Anything sounds different? Exactly.

If we make a cake out of clichés and butter it up with sugary clichés and then dip it in a cherry sauce of ….more clichés and eat it along with ice cream, that would still fail in representing the unsurprising film by the Pang brothers. He hires a petty thief in Bangkok named Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) for his menial work of collecting baggage from his client. Joe lays out the four rules of being a hit man which would mean he would break every one of it worthlessly.

In one of the worst scenes possible is when Joe is about to kill Kong because he knows too much but ends up being his “teacher”. If it sounds lugubrious in text, it is believably idiotic on screen. And when we are wondering why in the hell he did not kill him, arrives the voice over asking “Why did not I kill him? Because I saw myself in his eyes” All the more reason to kill. It is followed by “Hit man for Dummies by Dummies” which would not get him anywhere in the arena of Hollywood cool and clever hit man.

You do not expect a serious drama or semblance of sense in film like “Bangkok Dangerous”. If it becomes one, it should belong there deservingly. With a contemporary tone of cinematography which would have been a great deal ten years back, it is supposed to be a high voltage action film. Sleek actions and stylish executions are given factors when some one enters the theatre. Instead we see a middle aged hit man whose kill seem to be sloppy, uninventive and (yawn) boring.

And to not mess up the heroic image of the character, Kong comes by to attest the targets as “bad men”. Hence there would come a time question the conscience of killing a good man. For that he needs to understand the eternal problem solver of romance and friendship. He meets a deaf and mute lady (Charlie Yeung) in pharmacy and it is series of the most unromantic scenarios we have seen in recent times. There is nothing much to believe his rehabilitation.

Nicolas Cage is a complex personality by his choice of roles. He unflinchingly does a loser and a downer in “The Weather Man” with perfect conviction hard to accomplish. Then he walks a gritty satirical line of comedy, drama and weirdness in “Lord of War” to shoulder performances of humungous responsibilities. Then he does “National Treasure: Books of Secrets” and this painful failure. What ticks him to do these roles? Is he as Joe does it as a job and forgets about it? Joe is a bad hit man but Cage is a great actor and that is hurtful to see it go wasted in films like this.