Friday, September 12, 2008

Review - Bangkok Dangerous



Studio/Production Company: Saturn Films, Lionsgate Films
Director: The Pang Brothers
Written by: The Pang Brothers, Jason Richman
Rating: R for violence, language and some sexuality
Release Date: September 5, 2008
Genre: Action
Strong Points: Frequently striking cinematography, interesting action sequences, Nic Cage doesn’t freak out during the movie
Weak Points: A whopping two awkwardly placed and performed romances, false and arbitrary morality used to make the story work
Technical Score: B-
Artistic Score: C
Final Score (not an average): C
Moral Warnings: Several sequences at what appears to be a strip club (though no nudity is present); a topless woman lounges by a pool in another sequence; a sex scene is seen in passing; when the film erupts into violence, it does so with quite a bit of gore, including at least two dismemberment

I’ve not been a fan of straight-up action movies for a long time. They don’t tend to have a point, and I can’t stop myself from analyzing them to death. Basically, I can’t sit back and have fun with the movie itself, taking it for what it is. So I’ve become excessively picky in what I see.

Bangkok Dangerous is a bit different in this regard. I recognized the nods to Hong Kong action flicks in the trailers for this movie, but remained cautious, and with good reason. Star Nicolas Cage is fairly hit and miss in my experience. He can be absolutely amazing. Amazing, that is, until he freaks out and destroys any acting cred that he has. This is really unfortunate, because he’s demonstrated that he’s quite capable after turns in Wild at Heart, Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas and 8mm.

Bangkok Dangerous, for what it’s worth, doesn’t feature Cage freaking out. It does show him as a composed, lonely hitman, named Joe, who suddenly meets a girl and starts acting like a bashful high school kid on his first date. That was my first major problem with the movie. How does a man who kills people for a living end up stuttering and speechless in front of a mildly attractive woman? This is a man who is paid for his precise, confident work. It just doesn’t add up, and that really follows the film throughout this unfortunate romantic subplot.

Joe comes to Bangkok to complete four jobs. He spends much of his time in the city wandering the streets (to remember that he’s a part of the human race, he says) or in his town house (to hide in the shadows). As mentioned above, Joe pursues a relationship with Fon (Charlie Yeung), a deaf-mute pharmacist. It should be noted that at no time is this woman’s name actually mentioned on screen. If it is, I missed it. As with most of their communication, Fon tells Joe her name through poor pantomime and half-implemented sign language, which doesn’t exactly look convincing, and lends no credence to the idea of this couple’s burgeoning relationship.

Added to the mix is Kong (Chakrit Yamnam), a street con man who ends up acting as Joe’s errand boy. Kong is given strict rules (“You show up one minute late, you don’t get paid”) and sent off on his motorbike to shuttle briefcases between Joe’s hideout and a local strip club, where he meets Aom (Panward Hemmanee), a dancer who he immediately takes a completely unprofessional interest in, so to speak. This relationship is pursued in what seems to be fifteen minute spurts, largely without verbal communication of any sort, and starts escalating when Kong gives Aom earrings. It works, because he knows her so well and she’s accustomed to accepting gifts from strangers, like any beautiful woman is, obviously.

These thin threads of plot set up for some spectacular (in concept) set pieces that attempt to drive the story along as best they can. Their unfortunate deficiencies, as well as the wooden acting from much of the supporting cast, don’t help matters much.

Watching Cage set up each of the jobs that he’s paid to do feels a bit of a chore, and Kong being there to provide a false moral compass (one that feels like an awkward attempt at deus ex machina when none should be there) doesn’t help matters, especially when it’s been done twice before in recent history, and much better in both of those movies.

Take last fall’s Hitman, starring Timothy Olyphant as the amoral lead from the video games. While that movie wasn’t great, it did what it set out to do, and established a relationship between the titular character and a superimposed moral compass character in Nika. But it felt natural, with a sexual tension evolving between the two characters as they grew closer and encountered more danger.

And again, in this year’s Wanted, we see a conflicted character with a moral compass thrust upon him in the latter half of the movie. While that instance felt far less natural, it seemed far more plausible than what you see in Bangkok Dangerous. Cage’s Joe sees something in both Kong and his love interest, but I can’t tell what it is; the film takes place over the period of a month (as said by Cage in the beginning of the movie), which is certainly not enough time to either fall in love with a woman you can hardly speak to, or train a pupil who was initially planned to be killed.

No, it’s not enough time for either of those things, but for all my panning of the story, it really seems superfluous. This is not a movie about story or messages or morals, no matter how hard it tries to be. Cage’s dual sacrifices ultimately fall flat in a mire of politics and love, two things that can be successfully intertwined, but that the filmmakers cannot seem to handle. Ultimately, this is a movie about stylistic action sequences.

If that’s all that there was to movies like this, then The Matrix Revolutions would have done far better than it did. But it’s not. So it seems that ultimately, Bangkok Dangerous falls back onto its action sequences, all of which have some moderately memorable moments, but none of which are big enough, cool enough, or feature enough explosions to make them worth the price of admission.

On a purely technical level, Bangkok Dangerous often attempts to dazzle and often falls short. The cinematography is generally impressive, but pales in comparison to recent assassin films such as In Bruges and Wanted, which took the concept of an assassin to higher, better and alternately less and more violent levels. Still, it’s a solid looking picture that isn’t visually boring, but isn’t exactly visually arresting, either.

Bangkok Dangerous is, by its very nature, a violent film. Its story revolves around a man sent to kill four different people; each of these sequences is framed by a high action sequence that doesn’t skimp on the gore. Included in the film are at least two dismemberments, one via blade, the other from a grenade. Sexuality does figure into the movie, yet isn’t explicit. Several scenes take place in a strip club, but there’s no nudity, only skimpy costumes. There’s a sex scene glimpsed in passing, as well as a shot of a nude breast. Profanity is heard throughout the film, further securing its R-rating.

Bangkok Dangerous is a film that is not going to be enjoyed by the majority of serious film lovers. There’s too much fluff and not enough actual content here to satisfy anyone who really loves serious film. However, for those that enjoy fast paced, thrill-a-minute movies such as Crank, The Transporter and Shoot ‘Em Up, you can’t really go wrong with this movie. No, it doesn’t have charismatic leading men like Jason Statham or Clive Owen, and it’s not as fun as Death Race or Shoot ‘Em Up. It is, however, a solid action flick that’s pretty fun to watch, even if it borders on tedious at numerous points during its run time.

--Drew Regensburger (drew@revolve21.com)

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