"The Bodyguard" has a trashy brio that could make it click as an ancillary title among buffs. Showcasing multihyphenate Petchtai Wongkamlao -- aka popular comedian Mum Jokmok -- pic sags during a romantic/social subplot in the middle but gets back into gear in its final 50 minutes. Film grossed a bullish $3.3 million earlier this year in Thailand.
Playing like a Thai equivalent of a late-’70s Hong Kong comedy-actioner, “The Bodyguard” has a trashy brio that could make it click as an ancillary title among buffs. Showcasing multihyphenate Petchtai Wongkamlao — aka popular comedian Mum Jokmok — pic sags during a romantic/social subplot in the middle but gets back into gear in its final 50 minutes. Film grossed a bullish $3.3 million earlier this year in Thailand.
Wongkamlao worked on the comedy elements in 2003 megahit “Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior,” and here he’s corralled some of the same talent, including star Tony Jaa (in a supermarket cameo) and heroine Pumwaree Yodkamol, plus a raft of local comics. Plot about a faithful bodyguard, Wongkom (Wongkamlao), who spectacularly fails to protect his rich employer’s life and then takes on those trying to kill his employer’s son (Pipat Apiratthanakorn), is basically an excuse for a string of funny/dynamic action sequences, with extravagant use of wire-fu, slo-mo and acres of verbal shtick. Permanently attired in a sharp black suit, Wongkamlao plays it straight and low-key, and the humor (dumb cops, bonehead gangsters) works well about 50% of the time. Tech credits are OK.
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