Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Image credit: Chan Kam Chuen

DANGEROUS LIAISON Nicolas Cage wastes his time and ours in Bangkok, a slovenly would-be thriller

''My name is Joe,'' says the familiar droopy voice on the soundtrack. ''And this is what I do.'' He's making reference to being a hitman, but the actor might as well be talking about himself: His name is Nicolas Cage, and this is what he does — take the big bucks to star in slovenly, inert pulp of the sort no actor of his magnitude should be stooping to. In Bangkok Dangerous, the Pang brothers, remaking their 1999 Thai thriller, turn Cage into a scruffy, blank-eyed cipher of an assassin, who has been hired to kill four men; we learn so little about them that they flash by like the bad guys in a trailer. The filmmakers even manage to turn seamy Bangkok into the least exotic setting imaginable. F