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Bangkok Dangerous

Movie Grade: D-

DVD Features Grade: D+

Overall Grade: D

Nicolas Cage has put out more awful movies in the past ten years than any actor in Hollywood. Anyone that doubts this just needs to look at some of his recent titles. There was The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, and of course, Next just to name a few. In his never-ending efforts to disappoint, Cage has taken on the role of dark and cold-blooded assassin in Bangkok Dangerous. What treasures could await us in the film The Hollywood Reporter says, ""¦delivers for action fans."

To be completely honest, the movie was terrible and I found myself lost, but here's the gist of it. As I mentioned early, Joe is an assassin who travels to Bangkok for the crime lord Surat (Nirattisai Kaljaruek). He hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to use for some kind of networking with gang members. Joe and Kong start to develop and odd relationship and Joe teaches Kong the art of being an assassin in a Kung Fu film fashion. Joe also develops a relationship with a deaf woman named Fon (Charlie Young), but that side story just didn't fit the character or even the plot. It was just meant to make it seem like Joe had these complex feelings about what he did, but aside from that and one or two other scenes, it was just contradicting the rest of his behavior.

Honestly, I have nothing good to say about this movie. It was just all around terrible and I don't even think it would deliver for action fans. I feel like the beginning of that sentence was something along the lines of "Doesn't"¦" I even watched it with some friends of mine that are more into action films than I am, and they all seemed to be really tired of the movie before the opening credits started to roll. There is a lot of pointless jump cutting and a weird red filter sued in the end. I think it was supposed to seem like the room had only red emergency lights on, but they weren't fooling anyone.

There are a few overly ridiculous scenes in the movie as well; even too ridiculous for some Jason Statham fans. There's one scene where Joe is going to kill a man while he is swimming in his pool which made no sense. The guy was swimming before Joe got in the pool so I don't get how no one noticed and after he killed dragged the guy under and drowned him without running out of breath really just did nothing good for the movie. There's also a boat chase seen that you really have to watch to grasp how terrible it is.

The special feature From Hong Kong To Bangkok was probably the most entertaining thing on the disc, followed closely by the

Also From Lionsgate trailers. It gives a background into Chinese cinema which had a heavy influence on this film and a number of other American films. This idea of entertainment was unfortunately not carried through the rest of the special features. Bangkok Dangerous: The Execution of the Film is somewhat interesting because it discusses the adaptation from the Chinese version to the American version of the film. The problem is when the item of discussion is something you hate; it's hard to enjoy it regardless. The alternative ending falls under a similar category. I disliked the entire film so both endings seemed equally bad to me.

Since 2000, Nicolas Cage has appeared in about twenty movies. If I could give him one piece of advice, it would simply be, "chill out." There is absolutely no need for that and if he did less then maybe he would be remembered more for movies like Con Air or Face-Off. Bangkok Dangerous is just another film to add to his list of movies that have little to nothing to offer. His character wasn't given any sort of background and when they tried to elaborate on him it didn't work. When Joe goes to ask Fon on a date, it doesn't seem like anything has happened to make his character give up his rules as an assassin. Little things like this along with big things like a bad story made the film really unlikeable and ultimately a waste of time.

Movie Grade: D-

DVD Features Grade: D+

Overall Grade: D