Oh brother, here we go over again. A professional killer, years into his callous life history, suddenly develops a conscience. He decides to take a louche street child who has already proved to be na�ve and unreliable under his wing. Vowing to end his life of secret criminal offence, he commits to one more series of venomous assassinations. With each mutilate, he finds himself more and more lost. When the last hit goes pear-shaped, he must champion his honor while decision making whether it is better to be the highly paid hunter, or the common mundane prey. Oh yeah, and for an added soupy effect, there's a deaf girl dearest interest wHO makes the hitman true pine even harder for that elusive, simple life.
Why the Pang brothers (Danny and Oxide) wanted to remaking their 1999 cult favorite Bangkok Dangerous into a mindless, drone Hollywood cab job has only one viable answer -- the interest of former Oscar winner/current paycheck casher Nicolas Cage to play the lead. As Joe, we are treated to Method mediocrity, the kind of performance that finds our systematic killer following strict protocols and certain compact rules as a substitute for depth or actual personal dimension.
The plot has Cage deciding to give up the game, analyzing the ways he can buoy get out of his occupation in one case and for all. He decides to take unrivalled more task in the title metropolis. There, he befriends street hustler Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), turning him into a quasi-prot�g�. The rest of the picture show is a series of setups for uninteresting, if certainly stylized, pop gun payoffs. Eventually, Joe mustiness decide betwixt people and his personal needs piece taking on the crime syndicate that leased him.
In a movie with many problems, the main flaw in Bangkok Dangerous is that Cage's Joe is never presented as a openhearted or compelling figure. He's completely down and disillusioned from the moment we meet him -- and only gets worse as his situation starts to unravel. Instead of exploitation said circumstances to force his last stand, we are granted over to endless sequences of mum brooding. His interest in the local pharmacy salesclerk (Charlie Yeung) who can't hear seems specious, the twist in their relationship telegraphed by Cage's inherent ability to draw danger to himself. Even his interaction with Kong comes across as a saturated narrative device. So does Joe's decision to swoop in and save the thug once the local mobsters decide he's expendable.
In fact, lots of this movie feels like lessons badly learned from John Woo. While they quash the auteur's overuse of slow motion and visual panache, the Pangs experience their have set of irritating onscreen tendencies. They think that mannered music video moves and a total desaturation of vividness equals palpable post-modern noir. It but inspires electric current viewing nausea. Even worse, they hamfist their handling of the film's few action sequences, a ill helmed gravy boat chase never becoming nail-biting or thrilling. Even the final firefight set in a mill is so dark that a night vision lense would quiet render it dimly lighted. About the only efficient moment occurs when Joe's date with his deaf dream girl goes amiss. There, the Pangs wreak on the syrupy situation to wring out a little forced emotion.
If it didn't finger like such a work of Hollywood hubris and if the original elements that made the first film so intriguing (it was Joe, not the girl, world Health Organization could not hear) weren't swept aside for more anti-climatic, antiheroic stance, mayhap we could support what Bangkok Dangerous was strain to reach. But everything here feels like the proverbial good and madness, filled with typical Asian action film gravitas all the same signifying aught. A whole lot of nothing.
Stop praying. It'll be over soon.
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