Bangkok Dangerous

To say that I walked into Bangkok Dangerous with low expectations would be an understatement. The fact that the film had not been screened for critics, combined with the current state of Nicolas Cage's career (Remember, this is a guy who went from movies like Moonstruck and Raising Arizona, to Ghost Rider and The Wicker Man.), did not exactly fill me with hope. For a movie that the studio is supposedly afraid to unleash upon the paying public, Bangkok Dangerous really isn't all that bad. It's very middle of the road and never really stands out, but it's at least watchable. For an early September release, sometimes that's a blessing.

The movie is actually a remake of a 1999 film from Thailand. Unlike most Hollywood remakes the original directors, Asian filmmaking siblings, The Pang Brothers (The Messengers), have returned behind the camera for this update. I have not seen the original, so I cannot compare the two. One thing I did find curious is how dark and dimly lit everything in this movie is. Watching it, I couldn't decide if it was a poor stylistic choice, or if the theater showing it was running the film on a projector with a dying bulb. I did some research on line, and found other people complaining about the film's dim visuals, so I obviously was not alone. Dark visuals can work in a movie, especially the kind of crime drama that Bangkok Dangerous is. But this movie isn't dark, it's murky and muddy. You feel like you're watching the movie through a pane of dirty glass. Given the film's exotic locations, that's a real crime.

Nicolas Cage plays a hitman named Joe, who arrives in Bangkok to do a few jobs for his newest client. In a morose narration, he tells us that he pretty much lives by a series of simple rules, which pretty much revolve around not opening up to anyone, not questioning your orders, and not letting the outside world interfere with what you have to do. During the course of the film, he will break those rules. It starts when he hires a young hustler named Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to be his assistant while he's in Bangkok, running various errands for him. The two start out at odds with each other, but when Kong is beat up by some thugs while delivering a package for Joe, he becomes interested in his line of work, and wants to learn how to fight and kill so that he can better protect himself. Joe, perhaps against his better judgement, takes him on as a student. He also meets a beautiful deaf woman who works at the nearby pharmacy named Fon (Charlie Yeung). Joe feels a special bond with her, and before long, they're going on dates in his free time, and he's telling her he's a banker when she takes him home to meet her mother. The movie could have had a lot of fun with this idea, maybe have him actually try to pass himself off as a banker and pretend he knows what he's talking about. But, it completely skips over this.

Instead, Bangkok Dangerous is a redemptive story about a man who has been trained to be unfeeling, only to find himself opening up for the first time because of these people, and questioning the world he knows for the first time. It's an idea that's been explored numerous times in various other films, but it could have worked here if the screenplay by Jason Richman (Swing Vote) had been more interested in actually exploring its own ideas and characters. The script is built upon a series of vague assumptions and ideas. It gives us just enough to go on, but doesn't go far enough. Consider the scene where Kong botches a job, and Joe contemplates killing him, but he instead decides to accept his request to take him on as a student. Joe tells us in his voice over that he let him live because he sees something of himself in Kong. That's nice and all, but the movie doesn't go any further than that. We don't know anything about Joe, nor what he sees of himself in Kong, so we never understand exactly what he means. There's actually surprisingly little dialogue in the film, other than the narration provided by Cage, and it doesn't give us enough to go on. This makes the relationships at the center of the film, particularly the romantic one between Joe and Fon, much more forgettable than they are intended to be.

Despite the film's murky look, it is edited surprisingly well. There's a well-staged action sequence in the middle of the story where Joe has to chase down a fleeing target, and I was impressed by how clean and easy to follow the sequence was. Compare that to the jumbled mess of last weekend's Babylon A.D., and you really appreciate the work that the filmmakers put into the sequence. If the movie had more action, it'd be easier for me to recommend. But this is mainly a character piece, and because the movie doesn't go deep enough, we find ourselves kept constantly at a distance. Certain scenes or moments attempt to draw us in, but they don't fully succeed. The performances also fail to connect. Nicolas Cage speaks in the same tone of voice throughout the film, despite whatever may be happening to him. I understand he's playing a character whose emotions are largely muted due to his line of work, but he would have been much more effective if he tried to insert a little more personality during his scenes outside of his job. The one performance that does stand out is Charlie Yeung, who is not only lovely to look at, but is also very sympathetic. I wish more had been done with her character, especially after she learns the truth of what Joe does for a living. The confrontation, which should be inevitable in a film like this, never comes.

I found myself wondering if there was more to this movie that was either in the original film, or left on the cutting room floor. I was surprised that Bangkok Dangerous turned out to be a quiet and almost reflective drama, rather than the fast-paced action film I was expecting. But I was also left disappointed by how content the movie was to merely scratch the surface of its characters. It doesn't want to dig or pry, and that was a big mistake to me. This is a movie that wants to make us feel for the characters, but at the same time, doesn't want to take the time to allow us to feel for them. Talk about your missed opportunities.

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