Trailer Trash: Bangkok Dangerous

Cage. Haircut. Bad.

Bangkok Dangerous? What is that? It's not a sentence, or a description, or anything! It's two words placed next to each other!

Apparently, this is a re-make of a Thai movie called... Bangkok Dangerous. Maybe the title somehow makes sense in a country where heroin is cheaper than milk. Still, that's no excuse. They should at least put some fucking punctuation in there. What about, Bangkok? Dangerous! Or at least, Bangkok; Dangerous. Bet you’ve never seen a movie with a semi-colon in the title.

Does Nicholas Cage have it written into his contract that every movie he makes has to have really serious narration with the main character going through some existential crisis? Is it like a focus group thing, where audiences expect it and are disappointed if there isn't any grim voice over?

Speaking of Cage, his haircut in this trailer is just an absolute disaster. The embarrassing thing is that I had the exact same haircut junior year in high school. I mean identical. It’s like he went back in time, shaved my head, and made a wig out of it. All I can say is that it was a different time.

Now, I don’t expect every Cage movie to be completely original. They can’t all be Ghost Rider (or can they…). But Bangkok Dangerous seems to be pushing the limits of hackneyed filmmaking. An expert hitman developing a conscience? Why not make Cage’s character a retard, rename the movie Forrest Gump, and call it a day?

I usually let trailer narration slide, because it’s all so weird it hardly seems fair to single any one out. But there’s a line in Bangkok Dangerous that’s just priceless: “When you deal in the business of death, saving a life can be the most deadly job of all.”

Um… is that like one of those sayings that’s supposed to clear the mind of conscious thought, like the tree falling in the woods, or licks in a tootsie roll pop? I’ve read it like fifteen times. The more I read it, the more I’m convinced that Robert Frost has been resurrected and is now writing trailer copy for shitty action films.