Bangkok Dangerous Review

Bloody Cage. I don't care who your Uncle is, stop remaking other peoples movies. Not content with Gone in Sixty Seconds, The Wicker Man, Family Man (It's as close to Its A Wonderful Life as you'll get without Jimmy rising from the grave to take revenge) he's also been sniffing around Oldboy and as I type he's going all Keitel in an updated Bad Lieutenant. In the meantime we have his latest re-vision/vanity project the story of a deaf, mute assasin. Except in Hollywood you get paid more for each line you say so that clever hook of deaf mutery goes out of the window and Cage is just simply a hitman with a Leon complex.

Instead of reading this synopsis you could just go watch Leon. It is my all time most favourite bestest film ever and I really haven't praised it enough on this site. Suffice to say the plot covers many of the same routes, hitman grows a heart, takes on protege, forgets the rules he needs to live by, etc,etc. The main difference being in Bangkok Dangerous the 'love' interest and the protege are two seperate characters. The love interest being, you guessed it, a deaf, mute girl who works in a pharmacy. Well, you may not have guessed the pharmacy bit.

One of the most enjoyable things about hitmen movies is you don't know where the central characters moral compass is pointing. Yeah they go around murdering folks, usually for cash, but 9 times out of 10 they come across as pretty damn likeable people (bar that Oswald guy, he sucked). Within two seconds of Cage growing his big red fluffy heart he may have worn a big, pink, badge saying "I'm a good guy now!". John Cusack was a more morally ambiguous hitman in Grosse Pointe Blank. And he was Lloyd Dobler once. The nicest movie character ever.

Bar one pretty cool underwater assasination the film reeks of blandness and apart from the bad wig and gruff voice Cage is just going through the motions. Which seems strange when you consider if you're remaking someone elses work you should really have a vested interest in how it all turns out. Surely thats why you turn up in the first place, to make something as good if not better than before? So my theory is this. Cage is remaking good films badly so people go check out the original. A Thai film about a deaf mute assasin? I'm up for that.