Bangkok Adrenaline

"Danger is my breakfast, tell me more."

If a bunch of frat boys got together and decided to make a modern, more "extreme" version of Ong-Bak, you'd get Bangkok Dangerous. It's so macho that it's downright goofy, and there's only the barest skeleton of a plot, but I have to admit that it was a pretty fun movie to watch. 

The story is as basic as possible. Four Brits looking for a good time in Thailand get into serious gambling debts, and decide to kidnap the pretty daughter of a rich businessman and use her ransom to pay their way out of trouble. The scheme goes awry, and they end up having to protect the girl they kidnapped. 

See? Basic. But with lots and lots of opportunities for fighting. 90% of the movie is one of the guys fighting someone or running from someone. Two of the main characters are capable martial artists, and do most of the fighting. Another is a really huge muscular man who just smashes things/people, and the fourth is basically supposed to be comic relief. Like most of the attempts at humor in the movie, it doesn't really work. He's more annoying than anything else.

The fighting is pretty cool, but at times, the choreography seems stiff and obvious. It takes you out of the action when you see people repeatedly prepare for blows, consciously make sure they're in the right place to be hit, etc. Still, the action was frenetic, non-stop, and enjoyable.

Bangkok Adrenaline is a long way from a well-made action movie, but I've seen much worse. Keep your expectations at a suitably restrained level, and you'll probably get some mindless kicks out of it.