For those that don’t get enough slam-bang Nic Cage action in their Lost in Translation-like arthouse fare, here’s Bangkok Dangerous, a woefully misconceived picture that is nevertheless good for some unintentional laughs.
Routine hitman saga is inspired by everything from Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai to Leon: The Professional, but apparently the Pang Brothers felt a Nicolas Cage-starring remake of their own 1999 film might play well on the arthouse circuit as a sequel of sorts to Leaving Las Vegas.
As such, this entirely inept, dreadfully slow concoction plays out like an episode of 24 directed by Wong Kar Wai; action fans will be put to sleep in the first half hour while the rest of us get a few chuckles out of not one, but two gratuitous romantic subplots.
A distressingly downtrodden Cage – though there is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it heroin addiction subplot that might explain his appearance – plays professional hitman “Joe”, who begins the film by assassinating a police informant in Prague, receiving payment, and then tasering his delivery boy to death.
Up next is the titular city, where he’ll pull off that giant cliché that seems to drive all of these films: the final hit (actually a series of 4), for which he’ll receive a payment large enough to retire to the Bahamas.
Of course, we know what’s gonna happen here from the 5-minute Prague sequence, not to mention every other movie of this ilk we’ve ever seen: he’ll have second thoughts about his assignment, second thoughts about killing his delivery boy, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll fall in love with the deaf-mute Thai drugstore clerk who recommended some pills and a cream that really helped his gaping flesh wound.
Yes, shortly after arriving in Bangkok, Joe hires pickpocket Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to become his errand boy and retrieve the details of his next assignment.
Despite proving mostly unreliable, after Kong is mugged he asks Joe to “teach him”. So Joe, for some reason, decides to teach him in the deadly art of assassination. Next up: Joe falls for the aforementioned drugstore clerk, while Kong goes for the dancer who acts as a liaison between him and Joe’s employers.
Minor distractions as Joe successfully pulls off the next three hits, including a doozy where he attempts to shoot a man from a canoe in a busy tourist district as snapshots are being taken from all angles. But that last assignment, a political assassination: if only Kong hadn’t conveniently mentioned the target was a “good guy” in an unrelated conversation! Now what will Joe do? His employers won’t be happy.
It’s all entirely laughable, and at least warrants half a star for its unintentional entertainment. And that might be more – the film frequently crosses into so-bad-it’s-good territory – if it weren’t all so incredibly dull. The main character is so weak we simply don’t care about any of his ordeal; lingering shots and high-contrast lighting don’t help to build empathy.
Best moment: when Joe’s deaf-mute girlfriend turns her back and he murders two would-be muggers in cold blood. Heartbreak city when she turns around. Cage is completely, ineffectively subdued, and this is easily the worst he’s ever appeared on camera (he often seems to slowly be morphing into a Vincent Schiavelli).
The drug addiction subplot is so haphazardly thrown in here – Joe’s employers look at his list and question the inclusion of heroin, and then we get some random shots of baggies in a briefcase – that I’m tempted to suggest that someone took two looks at Cage’s appearance here and said to themselves “well, we’ve gotta explain this somehow.”
Bangkok Dangerous is certainly stylish and often nice to look at. In all other departments, however, it’s a disaster. Early scenes were set (and shot) in Prague, though you wouldn’t know it outside of a couple establishing shots and a Herold advertisement.
