Ah, remakes. I love you so.
And when I first saw the trailers for the remake of Bangkok Dangerous, featuring no less than Nicholas Cage as hitman Joe, I confess that I had some serious reservations.
Why? Because that trailer looked about as dull as a burlap sack full of wet hair, that’s why. And when I watched the movie, I was pleasantly surprised…but not by very much.
Hitman Joe is the best there is—a fact that a whole lot of other fictional hitmen would LOVE to dispute via all manner of lethal hardware—and he’s on his way to his final job, four kills in Bangkok. He hires a local pickpocket to serve as his go-between between himself and his bosses, but eventually takes a liking to the pickpocket, training him in the art of killing as his student. Joe’s first three kills go off with varying levels of resistance, but his fourth kill, the Prime Minister of Thailand, isn’t so easy. The pickpocket Joe trained has made it abundantly clear to Joe that the Prime Minister really IS one of Thailand’s finest, and Joe’s trust in his pickpocket friend / student is getting in the way. Now, Joe’s on the run, and his pickpocket friend is now in danger from the syndicate that hired Joe in the first place.
When you compare this one to the original, there is almost no comparison at all—every line that comes out of Nicholas Cage’s mouth is a violation of the original canon. The original hitman Joe, you see, was deaf and mute. The comparisons only get worse from there.
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