Bangkok Dangerous: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by the Pang Brothers, written by Jason Richman, 98 minutes, rated R.

File it under "What was he thinking?" And then file that file in the trash.

The new Nicolas Cage movie, “Bangkok Dangerous,” a remake of the 1999 Thai film of the same name, finds Cage once again turning himself into such a hard-looking wreck, it’s difficult to watch the movie without being distracted by how jarringly bad he looks.

Here’s a tip to Cage--your stylist hates you. Look into it. While you’re at it, consider that good lighting, better dentures and a new weave that doesn’t look as if the Black Death fell on your head will save you from being a horror show in your next picture.

It doesn’t make sense--why does he pointlessly continue to hit himself with the ugly stick, as he also did in two recent films, “Next” and “Ghost Rider”? It isn’t because he wants to be taken seriously (the man does, after all, have an Academy Award) and it certainly has nothing to do with the characters he’s playing in these films, so it comes down to whether Cage even cares how he comes across onscreen. If he doesn’t care, it’s starting to show at the box office. “Dangerous” tanked.

In the film, Cage is Joe London, an international assassin so emaciated and drawn, he looks like Amy Winehouse after setting her beehive ablaze.

We first see him in Prague, where he skillfully takes out his target before jetting off to Bangkok for a working vacation. It’s there that he will kill four men for Surat (Nirattisai Kalijaruek), who oddly looks and behaves like an Asian version of William Shatner.

Beam me out of this movie!

Anybadweave, along the way, Joe finds alliteration by hiring Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), a street thief eager to learn the ropes, and also by falling for a beautiful deaf-mute named Fon (Charlie Young), whose sweetness heals his wounds, including the scars etched into his heart.

If that last line made you gag, so will parts of the movie, such as the awkward stalker scenes in which Joe tries to get his game on by picking up Fon at the pharmacy where she crushes meds. Since Joe looks twice her age and tends to slink through the pharmacy’s aisles in an effort to catch glimpses of Fon, the film’s forced love angle feels uneasy at best, queasy at worst. What does Fon see in him, anyway? His life insurance policy? Given their language barrier, Joe’s inability to communicate beyond lines like “Thai food hot,” and his discount wicked witch wig, you have to wonder.

Anyway, it all goes predictably sour for all involved when Surat and his henchmen turn the tables on Joe in ways that grow increasingly ugly, though not especially exciting.

As directed by the Pang brothers, Danny and Oxide, who directed the better original, “Bangkok Dangerous” feels more like a dated television action movie from the ‘70s than it does anything made for today. There’s a whiff of David Carradine about the whole production--you could see him headlining this venture 20 years ago. But with Cage only showing up for a paycheck and barely willing to go through the motions to earn it, he fails to bring to this dull project the retro-coolness Carradine would have brought with him.

Grade: D