Summary
Contract Killer Joe Faces His Toughest Assignment Yet
My Thoughts
Bangkok Dangerous is a film about Joe (Nicolas Cage, “Mandy”), who has no relation to my last review of “Joe”, but instead is a paid contract assassin. He’s one of the best assassins in the world; he's Nicolas Cage-level assassin. “John Wick” better look out because Joe is merciless...ly boring. From the Pang Brothers comes their American remake of a Thai movie they made back in 1999 and for some reason, thought it would be necessary to treat us Americans to their style of filmmaking. Unfortunately, the end result is a mix mash of hodge-podge cinematography, uninspired action, and one of the most wooden Nicolas Cage performance. This film is a true testament to the fact that Cage just loves being in movies… and money. He sure loves that paycheck, because without that there's no way in hell anyone would agree to be in this trash.
Joe is hired for a job that takes him to (you probably could've guessed it) Bangkok to kill four people who his client, Surat, wants dead. Joe is a very precise assassin, holding close to his own set of strict rules that are given via a smooth Nicolas Cage narration. Joe usually hires petty criminals as assistants and then kills them after he’s through with them as not to create loose ends. Great protagonist, right? But when he hires a local pickpocket named Kong, he cannot find it in himself to kill this young man, because, as Joe says in a wonderfully bad monologue, "I saw myself in his eyes. So I decided to become his teacher." Right on the nose so us dumb Americans don't get lost in the translation, thanks Pang Brothers.
The dialogue and story beats are absolutely atrocious. It's like they wrote the first draft, and barely finished it before they went out for principle photography. So Joe and Kong become master and apprentice after a laughably bad knife fight/lesson in Kong's apartment. From there the narrative just gets lost in a fury of action and violence, filmed so poorly that you'll be in need of a dramamine before it's all said and done. Somewhere, deep down under a flurry of violence, the story progresses and Surat, the crime Lord who hired Joe, decides to clean house, and he sends men after Joe and Kong. For no real reason these two are chased through the streets of Bangkok for what seems to be an eternity, from one boring set piece after the next.
I wish I could say at least Nicolas Cage gives it his all, but unfortunately this is a phone in performance. No emotion ever flits across his overly glossy face, he just seems to be a wooden board. Usually one can go into a bad Nic Cage movie and normally expect at least a chaotic performance from the actor, giving us bursts of hysteria (like in “The Wicker Man” or “Vampire's Kiss”), but instead the script gives nothing for Cage to work with, so a boring story gets a boring performance. I love the guy, but this is easily one of his worst. And it's not like any of the other characters give him the opportunity to shine; everyone is boring and stale. The dialogue is horrible but also quite laughable, bringing me to my next point; this movie may just qualify as 'so bad it's good.'
After the first action sequence you realize that these directors have absolutely no clue how to make an action film. You could play a drinking game with how often the camera crosses the line, and the whole thing looks like a TNT made for TV movie, with shoddy cinematography and blocking that is the definition of amateur. It's these moments that make it transcend from grossly stupid, to laughably bad and practically enjoyable. It's when the filmmakers really think that their movie is something special, but it's actually awful that the so-bad-it's-good moments happen. There's a boat chase scene that simply needs to be watched with a group of people, as it is so astonishingly amateur it surprises me that no producer decided to scrap the project. There's also a strange relationship between Joe and a deaf shopkeeper Fon (Charlie Yeung), which is suppose to be the romantic element of this movie, but it's so bland and poorly written that it just comes off as a joke. Their first interaction had me rolling in laughter, as she stand dumbly waiting for Joe to realize that she cannot talk to him. It's so painfully awkward that it feels like a high school student is in the director's chair. There are plenty of those moments between the two love birds smattered throughout, and the way the two’s subplot concludes is nothing short of hysterical.
I really don't have much else to say about Bangkok Dangerous. The film left my brain almost as quickly as it entered it. I found myself frequently checking the internet to make sure I had the story right, because I had forgotten so fast. There's no substance or anything compelling to make this movie stand out. The only thing it has going for it is that it has a sort of so bad it's good quality to, from the not-suppose-to-be-humorous-but-very-hilarious dialogue, to the way the action scenes are shot. This film should give hope to real aspiring filmmakers that even films like this can get a pass in Hollywood. The performances are dismal, no joy or emotion is given by any of the actors, even Nicolas Cage is bored to death in this one, and that's just not okay in my eyes, because I can usually expect a few crazy outbursts from Cage in these sort of bad movies, but this time the script gives the man nothing to work with, and that's just a disappointment, much like the romance of this movie, and the action, and the story, Bangkok Dangerous is only meant to be seen with a group of people who love ripping movies apart… bring alcohol, because you're going to need it.
I give Bangkok Dangerous 1.5 stars out of 5.
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