• Tweet

Two out of Five stars
Running time: 99 mins

As pointless remakes and bad Nicolas Cage movies go, Bangkok Dangerous isn't awful, but it's frequently laughable and doesn't come close to the original.

What's it all about?
Directing duo the Pang Brothers (Danny and Oxide) remake their own 1999 Thai thriller with Nicolas Cage as Joe, a hit man with a strict set of self-defined rules who's come to Bangkok to execute four enemies of ruthless crime boss Surat (Nirattsai Kaljareuk). To cover his tracks, Joe hires street punk Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) as a go-between, with the intention of killing him off once the job finishes.

However, something about Kong penetrates Joe's rigid code and he takes him on as a protege instead. Meanwhile, Joe tentatively begins a relationship with a beautiful deaf chemist (Charlie Young) and soon finds himself gaining a conscience and questioning his entire existence, just as Surat decides that Joe himself needs to be taken out.

The Good
It's a shame that the Pang Brothers had to remake their own thriller rather than be allowed to come up with something original but at least they know their way around an action sequence and manage to capture the atmosphere of Bangkok. There's also strong support from Thai actors Young and Yamnarm.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the remake strips out everything that made the original interesting in the first place – for example, the point of the 1999 version was that Joe himself was deaf, while the fact that Cage has killed off all his previous proteges makes him extremely unsympathetic. Similarly, for someone trying to remain anonymous, Cage and his stupid hair (it's really time Cage started taking hair tips from Bruce Willis) stick out like a sore thumb.

The other problem is that Cage's super-serious performance is occasionally laughably bad, especially during the romantic scenes, whilst some of the action set-ups are unintentionally amusing (e.g. Cage's lame hat disguise) which robs them of any tension.

Worth seeing?
As rubbish Nic Cage movies go, Bangkok Dangerous is just about watchable, but as far as pointless remakes are concerned, you're much better off renting the original instead.