Directed by: Raimund Huber
Stars: Daniel O’Neill, Jacob Miles, Conan Stevens, Raimund Huber
A blazing DVD cover, people flying in with kicks, the tagline of FEEL THE RUSH. For £5 at your local supermarket, Bangkok Adrenaline instantly falls into my “oh, this will be worth at least a watch” pile of straight to DVD actioners.
Incidentally, I watched this with friends, beer and curry. Perfect combination. If it’s not great, at least we’ll have a fun time with the film in some regards.
Fast forward 84 minutes later….here goes:
I will be upfront and honest about Bangkok Adrenaline first. When it comes to action sequences, this delivers in spades. Considering its likely low budget, the film has a cinematic glint to it and the action sequences fronted by Daniel O’Neil (A veteran of Jack Chan’s stunt team) are impressively choreographed well and would go perfectly in any big budgeted action feast.
The rest is a borderline mix of insulting and just poor, poor, poor, poor, acting and story.
My friend James summed this up perfectly during the viewing. It seems some one filmed a really good action sequence and decided to add things around it. He’s damn right here. This construction of a plot line revolves around four guys who go to Bangkok for a bloke’s holiday.
Within three minutes they owe gangsters lots and lots of money. They have a week to get the cash of get hurt. So they decide to do a bit of grafting. Nothing works. Then the four decide to kidnap some wealthy guy’s daughter to raise the cash. You know, simple botched kidnap movie of the week it seems.
I think that’s the story line, give or take. I can’t vaguely remember it simply because we were all too busy laughing at the film’s plot holes or just shaking our heads in disbelief at some of the shockingly bad production values everywhere else around the film’s action sequences. You know something’s wrong when half the subtitles are in just a green outline.
The story just ends up being a complete mess. If four guys are only in Thailand for a week or so, how the hell do they own a rundown house? How on earth in a week’s time do characters suddenly know all the best buddies in the world to come and help them? How on earth do they know how to use sleeping gas? Why can this girl only speak Thai and then speak clear English in a clear American accent? Someone explain to me how far that guy can run away without wondering where the hell is he? Who is that character and why have they just arrived? How can the love interest walk around a wine factory in just a towel? Who? What? Where? How? ARGGGH!
Sure, I’ve got no excuses for watching films like this with my experiences with Seagals, Van Dammes, Lundgrens. But, in their defence, they had plot lines and they were easily explained and a damn valid attempt at making a complete movie. There are so many moments, so many moments of character action and interaction that just doesn’t work here and it’s so infuriating. Even to my standards, it’s painful to watch. I don’t always look for plot holes but Bangkok Adrenaline just keeps digging holes that are just not needed.
There have been films that promote upcoming talent. Ong-Bak is one, Tony Jaa goes to find his missing statue. Perfectly fine, the acting isn’t remarkable but at least they try and it’s not embarrassing. Bangkok Adrenaline has talent that mumble through dialogue, have problems pronouncing words, or if they’re really lucky have the microphone pointed the other way.
It is that bad! Seriously.
The best thing I can say about Bangkok Adrenaline is it makes a nice show off of cool action sequences. They are really good. Better than most straight to DVD actioners. I shouldn't expect much and I wasn't expecting much. Apart from the pleasing action which I didn't expect to see at first, the whole thing is let down by some of the most god awful acting and storytelling I’ve seen in years.
And I expect that to come most of the time from a Seagal film at the very least.
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