Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

99 min  -  Action | Crime | Thriller  

A trained American Hitman, Joe has four rules: know when to get out, erase every trace, take no interest in people outside work, and ask no questions. He goes toBangkok for a month-long assignment, to kill four people for Bangkok ganglord Surat.

He hires pickpocket Kong as his go-between, a condition of the contract being that the gang will never meet Joe. Target details from the Bangkok gangsters are delivered to Kong via a nightclub dancer, Aom, with whom Kong becomes romantically involved.

Joe's first execution is done in traffic with him riding a bike. A little girl is in the way, so Joe rides round the block and stops in front of the car, where he shoots the target with a machine pistol. During his getaway, he gets a graze on his arm and goes to a chemist shop, where he meets Fon, a beautiful deaf-mute who sells him his pills.

His second target is a ganglord and sexual predator who buys young girls from the North and sells them for sex. Joe sneaks into the penthouse, but cannot find him. Joe ventures out to the pool and finds the ganglord and Joe drowns his target in the pool.

He asks Fon to dinner the next day. She shows him some of the gentle beauty of life. Fon asks no questions, but when Fon's mother asks about Joe's work, he says he is a banker.

Originally he plans to kill Kong before he leaves, but after Kong gives him information about the second target, he begins to train Kong. Kong thinks Joe is a good man, who kills bad men; Joe always replies that they are "bad for someone".

Before the third kill, the gang attempts to identify Joe and he warns them off. For the third execution, the kill does not go as planned, with the target nearly getting away before Kong assists Joe; Joe catches the target after a chase and shoots him.

Muggers attack Joe while Fon is strolling ahead; behind her, Joe shoots them unheard, but when she is spattered with blood, she is appalled and runs away from him.

Kong describes the Prime Minister of Thailand as a good man whom the people love; but the Prime Minister is the fourth target. Politicians are risky to assassinate, and outside Joe's contract. The gang capture Kong and Aom, intending (as is Joe's practice) to erase every trace. Joe is about to make the kill when he remembers Fon's anguish, has second thoughts, is spotted, and escapes through a panicking crowd.

Joe is now a target and is attacked at his house by four gang members. He manages to use explosives to take them out. He calls on Fon, who refuses to see him. He is faced with the choice of rescuing Kong or leaving the country unharmed. Breaking all his rules, Joe decides to rescue Kong, so he sets off to the gang's headquarters with one of the half-alive attackers who was injured in the explosion.

Joe kills most of the gang and saves Kong and Aom. The fearful gang leader flees to his car with three accomplices. Joe spots him and shoots and kills the gang members at the front of the car. As the police arrive at the location, Joe kills the last of the henchmen in the back of the car, then gets into the back seat with Surat, the gang leader.

Joe is in a difficult situation, surrounded by armed police. He remember's Fon's disgust, puts both his and Surat's heads together, then puts the gun up to his temple and pulls the trigger, killing himself and Surat. The final scene shows Kong standing alone by the dock, looking out to the distance.

 

Lord of War (2005)

  122 min  -  Crime | Drama | Thriller  -  16 September 2005 (USA)

Storyline

This film charts the rise and fall of Yuri Orlov, from his early days in the early 1980s in Little Odessa, selling guns to mobsters in his local neighbourhood, through to his ascension through the decade of excess and indulgence into the early 90s, where he forms a business partnership with an African warlord and his psychotic son. The film also charts his relationship through the years with his younger brother, his marriage to a famous model, his relentless pursuit by a determined federal agent and his inner demons that sway between his drive for success and the immorality of what he does.

Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), an American gunrunner of Ukrainian origin, stands in a sea of spent shell casings. He states that with over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation, there is one firearm for every twelve people on the planet- and ponders how to arm the other eleven. The opening credits follow, set to Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth". The life of a 7.62x39mm round is depicted as it is made in the Soviet Union, shipped to a warzone in Africa, loaded into the magazine of an AK-47 and fired into the head of a child soldier.

In 1982, through voice-over, Orlov describes the beginnings of his career. After he sees a Russian mobster kill two would-be assassins in a restaurant, he notices that the restaurant's purpose was to fulfill a necessity for food, so he decides to fulfill a necessity by providing firearms. He partners up with his brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), and forms his own arms business. Yuri's first break comes during the 1982 Lebanon War, during which he sells guns to all sides of the conflict.

As his business grows, Yuri tells of his first incident with Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), an Interpol agent who is unusually idealistic and refuses bribes of any kind. Just before Valentine and a team of Interpol agents board a freighter of Yuri's, the Kristol, he orders the crew to paint on a new name. Tricked into thinking they have found the Kono instead, the Interpol agents leave after an Interpol intelligence operative on Yuri's payroll calls in a false sighting of the Kristol.

During a business deal with a Colombian drug lord, Yuri is paid with six kilograms of cocaine instead of cash. The drug lord refuses to pay with anything else, and quickly becomes furious when Yuri argues that he deals in arms, not drugs. Shot during the argument, Yuri gives in and takes the cocaine as payment. Vitaly takes one kilogram to get high, and becomes addicted.

Yuri checks Vitaly into a drug rehabilitation center. From that point onward, he conducts his arms business alone. Soon after, he courts model Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan) after forging an elaborate scheme where Yuri lures Ava to a false photo shoot. Together, they marry and they have a child named Nikolai (Nicky).

Yuri gets his second big break after the Soviet Union dissolves. Yuri rushes to Ukraine after watching Mikhail Gorbachev's Christmas Day 1991 speech of resignation on television. He begins illegally buying tanks and other weapons from Ukraine's new military to expand his operations.

Yuri expands his weapon sales to conflicts in Africa, most notably in Liberia. His business garners him a close relationship with Andre Baptiste Sr., a ruthless dictator responsible for much of the conflict in Liberia as well as the use of "child soldiers".

Unable to charge Yuri for his crimes, Valentine reveals to Ava that Yuri is an arms dealer. Ava convinces him to stop dealing. Yuri reveals that it is not the income that has fueled his career, but quotes, "I'm good at it" as a means to explain his continuous spiral into moral convolution. Yuri complies for a short while, but finds it difficult to earn as much through honest wages. He is lured back in when his old client, the dictator of Liberia, Andre Baptiste Sr., promises a very good pay.

Yuri brings Vitaly along to Liberia, claiming he can't trust anyone there. However, Baptiste reveals that the weapons are intended for the RUF rebels of Sierra Leone. During the transaction, Vitaly sees a group of RUF rebels kill a woman and her child with machetes, and tries to convince Yuri to stop. When Yuri refuses, Vitaly takes a grenade and blows up half the gun shipment. He runs to the other truck to destroy the other half, but the soldiers with whom Yuri has been negotiating with shoot Vitaly. Yuri then approaches the mortally wounded Vitaly, only to retrieve the activated grenade and return it to the very soldier who had shot his brother.

Back at home, Valentine follows Ava as she finds Yuri's security container. She and Yuri's parents disown him. Yuri is arrested after a bullet is found in Vitaly's chest as it passes through customs. Valentine, convinced that he can now find evidence to convict him with, tells Yuri that he has found his security container. However, Yuri reveals to Valentine that his superiors at Interpol will not allow him to be convicted, as he has positioned himself as a "necessary evil", someone who is able to distribute weapons when first-world governments do not wish to become directly involved. This proves to be true, and Yuri is released after United States Marine Corpsofficer Colonel Oliver Southern speaks to Valentine. Despite all personal losses, Yuri returns to his career in weapons trafficking.

A brief postscript notes that, while private arms dealers do conduct a lot of business, the five largest arms exporters – the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China – are also the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Defiance (I) (2008

he film opens with on-screen text stating: "A true story". It is August 1941 and Nazi forces are sweeping through Eastern Europe, targeting Jewish people. Among the survivors not killed or restricted to ghettoes are the Bielski brothers, who are Jews: Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber), Asael (Jamie Bell), and Aron (George MacKay). Their parents are dead, slain by the local police under orders from the occupying Germans. The brothers flee to the Białowieża Forest, vowing to avenge their parents.

They encounter other Jewish escapees hiding in the forest and the brothers take them under their protection and leadership. Over the next year, they shelter a growing number of refugees, raiding local farms for food and supplies, moving their camp whenever they are discovered by the collaborating police. Tuvia kills the local police chief responsible for his parents' deaths and the brothers stage raids on the Germans and their collaborators; however, Jewish casualties cause Tuvia to reconsider this approach because of the resulting risk to the hiding Jews. A long-time sibling rivalry between the two eldest brothers, Tuvia and Zus, fuels a disagreement between them about their future: as winter approaches, Zus elects to leave his brothers and the camp and join a local company of Soviet partisans, while his older brother Tuvia remains with the camp as their leader. An arrangement is made between the two groups in which the Soviet partisans agree to protect the Jewish camp in exchange for supplies.

After a winter of sickness, starvation, attempted betrayal and constant hiding, the camp learns that the Germans are about to attack them in force. The Soviets refuse to help them and they evacuate the camp as German dive-bombers strike. A delaying force stays behind, led by Asael, to slow down the German ground troops. The defense does not last long, with only Asael and Sofiya surviving to rejoin the rest of the group, who, at the edge of the forest, are confronted with a seemingly impassable marsh. They cross the marsh, but are immediately attacked by German infantry supported by a Panzer III. Tuvia then flanks the tank with a captured MG34and turns it on the Nazi soldiers. Isaac is shot and killed while trying to throw a grenade which detonates on him. Just as all seems lost, the Germans are assaulted from the rear by a partisan force led by Zus, which has apparently deserted the Soviet retreat to rejoin the group. As the survivors escape into the forest, the film ends as on-screen text states that they lived in the forest for another two years, building a hospital and a school, ultimately growing to a total of 1,200 Jews. Original photographs of the real-life characters are shown, including Tuvia Bielski in his Polish Army uniform, and tells their ultimate fates: that Asael joined the Soviet Army and was soon killed in action, and that Tuvia and Zus survived the war and emigrated to America to form a successful trucking firm in New York City. The epilogue also states that the Bielskis never sought recognition for what they did, and that the descendants of the people they saved now number in the tens of thousands.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

147 min - Drama | Fantasy - 5 January 2007 (USA)

he film begins with the sentencing of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), a notorious murderer. Between the reading of the sentence and the execution, the story of his life is told in flashback, beginning with his abandonment at birth in a French fish market. Raised in an orphanage, Grenouille grows into a strangely detached boy with a superhuman sense of smell. After growing to maturity as a tanner's apprentice, he makes his first delivery to Paris, where he revels in the new odors. He focuses on a girl selling plums (Karoline Herfurth) and startles her with his beh

avior. To prevent her from crying out, he covers the girl's mouth and unintentionally suffocates her. After realizing that she is dead, he strips her body naked and smells her until the scent fades. Afterwards, Grenouille becomes haunted by the desire to preserve a woman's scent forever.

After making a delivery to a perfume shop, Grenouille amazes the Italian owner, Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), with his ability to create fragrances. He revitalizes the perfumer's career

with new formulas, demanding only that Baldini teach him how to convert scents into perfume. Baldini explains that all perfumes are harmonies of twelve individual scents, and may contain a theoretical thirteenth scent. He also tells a story about a perfume discovered in an Egyptian tomb that was so perfect that it caused everyone in the entire world to briefly believe they were in paradise the moment the bottle was opened. When Grenouille discovers that Baldini's method of distillation will not capture the scents of all objects, such as iron chains and dead animals, he becomes depressed. After receiving a letter of presentation written by Baldini, Grenouille leaves to learn a different method in Grasse. En route to Grasse, Grenouille realises that he has no scent of his own, and is therefore a cipher. He decides that creating the perfect smell will prove his worth.

Upon arrival in Grasse, Grenouille catches the scent of Laura Richis (Rachel Hurd-Wood), daughter of the wealthy Antoine Richis (Alan Rickman) and decides that she will be his "thirteenth scent", the linchpin of his perfect perfume. Grenouille finds a job in Grasse under Madame Arnulfi (Corin

na Harfouch) and Dominique Druot (Paul Berrondo) assisting with perfumes and learns the method of enfleurage. He kills a lavender picker and attempts to extract her scent using the method of hot enfleurage, which fails. After this, he tries the method of cold enfleurage on a prostitute and successfully preserves the scent of the woman. Grenouille embarks on a killing spree, murdering beautiful young girls and capturing their scents. He dumps the women's naked corpses around the city, creating panic. After preserving the first twelve scents, Grenouille plans h

is attack on Laura. During a church sermon

against him it is announced that a man has confessed to the murders. Richis remains unconvinced and flees the city with his daughter. Grenouille tracks her scent to a roadside inn and sneaks into her room that night. The next morning, Richis discovers Laura lying dead in her bed.

Soldiers capture Grenouille moments after he finishes preparing his perfume. On the day of his execution, he applies a drop of the perfume over himself. The executioner and the crowd in attendance are speechless at the beauty of the perfume; they declare Grenouille innocent before falling into a massive orgy. Richis, still convinced at Grenouille's guilt, threatens him with his sword, before being overwhelmed by the scent and e

mbracing Grenouille as his "son". Eventually, the town awakens and decides that the godly Grenouille could not have been the murderer. Druot is convicted for the murders and hanged, since it was his backyard where the clothes and hair of the victims were found.

Walking out of Grasse unscathed, Grenouille has enough perfume to rule the world, but has discovered that it will not allow him to love or be loved like a normal person. Disenchanted by his aimless quest and tired of his life, he returns to Paris. Back in the city, Grenouille returns to the fish market where he was born and dumps the perfume on his head. Overcome by the scent and in the belief that Grenouille is an angel, the nearby crowd devours him. The next day, all that is left are his clothes and the open perfume bottle, from which one final drop of perfume falls..

Genres:

Drama | Fantasy