HAVING failed to make much impact Stateside with their previous film The Messengers, Hong Kong directing brothers Oxide and Danny Pang try again with a Hollywood remake of their debut Bangkok Dangerous, in the process turning it into yet another dund
erheaded action vehicle for Nicolas Cage.
Cage plays international assassin Joe, in Bangkok to do one last job: four kills for a retirement-facilitating payday. Naturally, nothing quite goes to plan as a suddenly superstitious Cage starts breaking his cardinal rules: first making friends with a street hustler he ropes in to help him, then falling for a deaf-mute checkout girl in a pharmacy. The latter plot twist results in the biggest unintentional laughs here as Cage goes all moon-faced, though this has nothing on the outlandish scene where her deafness means she initially doesn't notice when Cage assassinates two muggers in cold blood, literally behind her back while the pair are out for a romantic stroll. Murky cinematography and rapid-fire editing can't obscure the fact that all this was fairly generic stuff even in its original screen incarnation nine years ago – or the fact that the only truly dangerous thing in Bangkok this time out is Cage's ludicrous hairpiece.
The full article contains 223 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
