Friday
05Sep2008
Movie Review - 'Bangkok Dangerous'
Friday, September 5, 2008 at 2:44PM Bangkok DangerousStarring Nicolas Cage and Shahkrit Yamnarm
Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang
Rated R
You hear all the time that sex and violence in movies
and television has desensitized our society, and dangerously so. We're warned
about letting our children play Grand Theft Auto, meanwhile their
grandparents sang along as Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Sorry, but I don't see much difference.
Sex and violence is around us all the time and it always
has been, intertwined in a way that it probably shouldn't be. Of course, Jack
the Ripper never downloaded porn or watched a slasher movie, so what set him
off?
On the surface,
Bangkok Dangerous
brings to mind those images of sex and violence, not separate but rushing
together. Bangkok, as you probably know, has one of the world's most liberal sex
trades - you want it, you got it. Dangerous, at least when the movie poster
shows
Nicolas Cage pointing a gun, means violence. Strangely enough, though,
this movie didn't have enough of either, or at least not enough of one or the
other.
Cage plays a hitman named Joe, who, as movie hitmen do,
moves from city to city killing high profile targets for untold riches. He lives
very well, again, as movie hitmen almost always do. He's called to Bangkok to
eliminate four targets and Joe considers in the last job. There's a reason crime
movies employ the last job device so frequently: It's an instant character arc.
If the criminal gets out of that life, he's reformed, and the screenwriter has
therefore done the minimum amount required by the story.
Reader Comments (6)
...there is NO gun on a poster...
~pep
Yes there is. It's in his hand. A revolver. Tough to see, but it's there. Also: Bullet holes.
http://www.impawards.com/2008/bangkok_dangerous_ver2_xlg.html
:)
Well I'll be damned. Sure looks like he's holding a gun. He ought to be; people are shooting at him.
Fuc..
Bangkok is not the sex capital of the world. But L A is
The movie wasn't all bad. Cage delivered a decent performance. Not his best, but not the worst. Yamnarm was impressive with his performance as a pickpocket turned student as well. The lines were simple and the plot uncomplex. It was very slow between action segments. Action sequences were kept to small, spread out segments. The biggest disappointment: the ending. I'm satisfied with the experience for the most part, like I said, not a bad movie. It was better than I thought it would be.