cliff-19
Joined Jul 1999
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cliff-19's rating
This was an unexpected surprise on a long bus trip out of Bangkok. The four Thai guys are NOT in Africa; they are in Thailand. The bus driver calls out implausible Thai locations, but the locale changes into Africa, then into the American Wild West, then back into Thailand. All the Africans (and the American cowboys) speak Thai, and the ghosts are Thai, Chinese, British and African. One of the African "cannibals" tells them that he used to work as a comedian in Bangkok.
The movie is loaded with pop culture jokes, including references to The Wild Bunch, Tsui Hark movies, a cameo by a Charles Bronson look-alike and tons of jokes about those brain-numbing ghost comedies. There are also many movie-within-a-movie frame changes and a cool ending where they go over the script of the movie we just saw.
Recommended ONLY if you already have seen some of those Thai comedies -- most of the jokes would otherwise be over your head.
The movie is loaded with pop culture jokes, including references to The Wild Bunch, Tsui Hark movies, a cameo by a Charles Bronson look-alike and tons of jokes about those brain-numbing ghost comedies. There are also many movie-within-a-movie frame changes and a cool ending where they go over the script of the movie we just saw.
Recommended ONLY if you already have seen some of those Thai comedies -- most of the jokes would otherwise be over your head.
There is a good premise here, that someone brought into a Taliban-like group may have misgivings when pressured to do objectionable things. Further, the interaction with the foreign hostage may trigger these doubts. This was one of the themes of "The Crying Game", among others.
But this movie makes so many foolish decisions and has its characters behaving so implausibly, it just smells like Hollywood in the mix.
We can see how ridiculous this movie has become when we compare the movie's journalist with actual journalists who were captured. There are clear ways that informants on the other side are protected, and that protection is part of the returnee's debriefing. The setup we are given here, of a journalist fearing that her lies would be disclosed, is so preposterous, it is clear that no real journalist was shown a script.
But this movie makes so many foolish decisions and has its characters behaving so implausibly, it just smells like Hollywood in the mix.
We can see how ridiculous this movie has become when we compare the movie's journalist with actual journalists who were captured. There are clear ways that informants on the other side are protected, and that protection is part of the returnee's debriefing. The setup we are given here, of a journalist fearing that her lies would be disclosed, is so preposterous, it is clear that no real journalist was shown a script.
