Perhaps a better title would have been Bangkok Mildly Threatening. It’s not a horrible film, it’s just we’ve seen it all before, and done better. There’s a small bit of titillation and fear, but the muted action clichés lumber along, one after the other, so you might well be asleep by the time you arrive at the film’s one surprising twist, which happens at the very end.

This is an English-language remake of a Thai film of the same name that was released in 1999. Both films were made by the Pang Brothers (The Eye), who were thrilled to get enough backing to hire Nicholas Cage for the lead. Cage also is a producer. He stars as “Joe,” a world-weary assassin who wants to make his last hits in Bangkok before he retires from the morbid trade and disappears. Gee, we’ve never seen that theme in a movie before, have we? Why are filmmakers and video gamers so obsessed with hit men and assassins? What does that say about our culture? Of course Joe finds a distraction or two before he completes his final hit, in the form of an attractive deaf, mute pharmacy assistant whom he naturally starts courting, and an ambitious messenger boy whom he naturally starts mentoring. Four hits to go, and they get progressively messier as Joe’s career winds down.

The film focuses on the seamier side of Bangkok, although it doesn’t dig deep. We see relatively modestly dressed chorus girls but no exotic dancers, t-shirt shops rather than unique Thai boutiques and tacky tourist traps rather than the country’s more unusual attractions. Just about the only arresting images are Cage’s clever but grisly hits, and the occasional elephant that wanders around town. Bangkok Dangerous isn’t as bad as one might fear, but it’s certainly not as good as one might hope.

Rated R

-- LJM