Bangkok Dangerous

Year: 2008

Grade: D+

Country: USA

Director: Pang

Review

now’s as good a time as any to watch this because of all the chaos in the region. the movie has nothing to do with red shirts or any of that other stuff. nick cage turns in clunkers about 20% of the time these days and this one definitely fits into that category. it’s a shame because he has the ability to turn in good performances like bad lieutenant, leaving las vegas, lord of war, matchstick men, weather man, kick-ass, and raising arizona, but he’s not real picky about scripts and will pick up roles like this and ghost rider which are both bad films.

the writing here from the opening scene onward is just bad, and obvious. the first 15 minutes feels like they had three writers write the intro and they couldn’t decide which one they likes the most so they used them all. the action isn’t great either. cinematography is decent. only cage’s sidekick does a halfway decent job of acting, everyone else is basically as good as the average LA bartender.

it’s kind of the inverse of karate kid. in karate kid it’s an older asian guy befriending a young white kid. in this movie it’s an older white guy in an asian country who befriends a younger asian kid who isn’t doing so hot in life. karate kid was good, this one was bad.