“The work is steady, the money’s good, but it’s not for everyone,” says Nicolas Cage’s assassin Joe at the beginning of Bangkok Dangerous. He’s describing his globe-trotting, gangster-murdering job, but he could just as easily be describing Cage’s career. The actor has delivered reliably decent performances in action movies for years, sometimes giving the impression that he worked harder on a single scene than the screenwriter did for the whole movie.
Cage can’t just be used indiscriminately, though—he’s at his best when he’s straight man to a bunch of crazies (Con Air) or straight man to one Scottish crazy (The Rock). Bangkok Dangerous’ tries to make Cage the crazy, but it doesn’t give him enough material for that transformation. His Meat Loaf haircut was a nice try, though.
Brought to Bangkok for the time-honored “last job,” Joe sets himself up with a deaf-mute girlfriend and a colonial stereotype of an assistant named Kong. While well-played by Shahkrit Yamnarm, Kong drops “yes, boss” so liberally that he seems more like a character in a Charlie Chan movie.
The girlfriend fares better. Until Bangkok Dangerous, I had never considered the advantages a deaf girlfriend offers a hitman. For one, she can’t hear guns shot a few feet from her, so combining business with pleasure is that much easier. Watching the girlfriend walk blissfully ahead of Cage while he dispatches thugs is one of the movie’s greatest joys.
Fun like that is in short supply in the movie, especially when it comes to visuals. Bangkok Dangerous aspires to be the kind of movie about which people say, “The real main character was Bangkok itself.” Joe assures us that Bangkok is a squalid, corrupt place, but the camera only reinforces his point by showing a lot of neon. Brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, directing this remake of their 1999 film of the same name, waste their location, thinking that a couple of elephants will spice up a movie that could just as easily be called Alexandria, Virginia, Dangerous.
At least the Pangs kill with style. In past roles, Cage has shoved his enemies into airplane propellers and stuffed their mouths with VX gas. This has given him a reputation to live up to, and the Pangs don’t let him down. In one scene, Cage blocks a grenade blast with a gangster’s torso, and for those few seconds, Bangkok Dangerous is a delight.
That feeling doesn’t last long, in part because the movie doesn’t play by its own rules. Joe is obsessed with secrecy—working through intermediaries, freezing when a girl sees him cock his gun miles from a crime—but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying multi-vehicle chases through crowded markets that end in public executions. The Pangs seem unable to make up their minds about whether Joe is a ninja or Rambo.
The movie must have a decide-for-yourself ending, because taken literally, the conclusion is wildly unsatisfying. The film’s illogical ending seems like a bigger offense than all its others, though it shouldn’t be a surprise that a movie that failed to meet so many low expectations—Nicolas Cage will be good in an action movie, Chinese directors won’t repeat ugly European stereotypes about Asians—would flop on another as well.
