‘Bangkok’ brings the yawns
When one first hears that “Bangkok Dangerous” was a remake of a Thai film by the same name, it is hard not to wonder why the Pang brothers would want to remake this movie.
The plot is not that creative. The action scenes were really not that special, and the actors were not that good. Without the help of the attractive scenery, this movie should have been skipped completely.
Joe (Nicolas Cage) is a well-trained hitman on his last job.
He is hired by Surat (Nirattisai Kaljaruek), a major crime boss, to kill four men. Joe hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to be his errand boy, and plans to kill him when his job is done.
However, he begins to like Kong and teaches him to fight. After getting a cut while on a job, he heads to a small pharmacy where he meets Fon (Charlie Yeung), a deaf- mute woman, and invites her to go to dinner.
He starts to slowly fall in love with her until he makes a critical mistake that drives her away. At the same time, Surat feels it is time to “clean house” and get rid of Joe before he gets rid of him.
We have heard it all before. Some killer becomes remorseful after falling in love with a woman and mentoring some young man. There was a crime boss in charge and many people die. There is really nothing creative about this.
It was a new killer and a new setting, but nothing about this movie really screamed “original.” It was almost too predictable to be a good action movie.
Bang! Someone shoots somebody.
Isn’t that in every action movie? Most movies try to add something new to this idea, not “Bangkok Dangerous.”
Shooting is about all one gets with this movie. Someone does get their arm chopped in one scene, and someone else gets blown up in the next. The rest was pretty plain.
Kaljaruek is supposed to be the “bad guy.”
Yet, he is portrayed as a sweaty coward. He needed to be more forceful rather than wimpy in order to play the big crime boss.
None of the female characters had any big speaking lines in this movie. The Pang brothers almost made these women seem unimportant and useless. It would have been nice to know about these female counterparts.
At least this movie was colorful. The city of Bangkok was shown with bright lights and plenty of flare. There were Thai people everywhere and everything was moving around. It was a rather nice picture.
Another scene showed Joe and Fon in a Buddhist temple. It was almost breathtaking to see the giant statues and beautiful walls of silver and gold. The candlelight added to the mood of the prerequisite love scene.
Overall, this is a movie to rent once when everyone is bored and doesn’t really feel like thinking too much. Skip the movie theater.
