Bangkok Dangerous
With the close of summer, the caseload of a consulting movie detective becomes a very mundane thing. Gone are the big money schemes that began in May, and the combination of holiday and award-seekers of late in the year have yet to come. Opening up this season is a Nicholas Cage adventure called “Bangkok Dangerous.”
With the large, soulful eyes of a bassett hound and hair that always looks like a stylist’s nightmare, Nicholas Cage comes to the titular city of Bangkok as the classic professional killer on the verge of career crisis. After years of cold bloodedly killing not only his targets, but his accomplices as well, Cage’s character becomes unexpectedly sentimental about both a pickpocket hireling and a deaf pharmacist’s assistant. One is never quite sure why, but it fits the basic formula of what is basically a formula movie.
“Bangkok Dangerous” has a lot of Bangkok, but the “dangerous” part falls a bit short in that formula. Cage’s character seems to have some impossible aspirations, like forming a relationship with a girl from another culture who can’t understand a word he says or writes, and some that are just incomprehensible, like tutoring his hireling in the martial arts. (Interestingly, here we have one of the first movies in with a Westerner teaches an Easterner martial arts.)
The result is a somewhat watchable, yet empty piece of cinema that leaves one wondering if “Hamlet 2” down the hall is any good.
What great-grandfather Sherlock might have said:
“My mind rebels at stagnation.”
Past Investigations
An Introduction to
Mr. Sherlock Holmes IV
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
In The Name Of The King:
A Dungeon Siege Tale
Fantastic Four:
Rise of the Silver Surfer