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BANGKOK DANGEROUS

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BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

September 5, 2008

(RATED R) Joe, the contract killer at the center of " Bangkok Dangerous," tells us two things: "No one knows who I am. No one knows where I am."

By the film's end, however, you may not care either way. We never learn much about Joe ( Nicolas Cage), save that he broods a lot and has distractingly long, greasy hair. As for his location, you'd never guess were it not for the film's title. Bangkok, that filthy and colorful metropolis, comes off looking as bland as Vancouver and far from dangerous.

When we first meet Joe, he's finishing a couple of bloody jobs in Prague and bemoaning his choice of careers, which seems as tedious as that of a traveling salesman: another city, another hotel, all the same. "I'd like to meet someone," he sighs, "but it's tough when you live out of a suitcase." When Joe jets off to Bangkok to undertake four new contracts, he's hoping they'll be his last.

After securing a sleek, modern apartment, Joe spots a fast-moving pickpocket named Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) and hires him as a disposable errand-boy. But the young, impressionable Kong decides he wants to be just like his new boss: "Teach me," he says. As Joe becomes a mentor to Kong (cue montage of pistol practice and backyard wrestling), he also opens his heart to a winsome deaf girl (Charlie Young) who works at the local pharmacy.

Directed by the Hong Kong brothers Danny and Oxide Pang ("The Eye") and based on the 1999 Thai film of the same name, "Bangkok Dangerous" pretends to have a lot on its mind. It moves slow as molasses and has the same general coloring. The muddled action sequences inch forward through pitch-black warehouses, murky swimming pools and other shadowy interiors while Cage wears an expression of stone.

It's never clear why Joe takes Kong under his wing or, conversely, why a proper, attractive Thai girl would date an American whose hair is so bizarre. As for the underlying morality of the whole concept -- what kind of person takes contract-killing lessons? -- "Bangkok Dangerous" decides that problem is too dangerous to mess with.