Elephant White (2011)

An assassin is hired by a businessman to avenge the murder of his daughter by white slave traders in Thailand.

Director:

Prachya Pinkaew

Writer:

Kevin Bernhardt

Stars:

Djimon Hounsou, Markus Waldow, Kevin Bacon

Cast

Credited cast:
Djimon Hounsou	...	Curtie Church
Markus Waldow	...	The Man with the Stopwatch
Kevin Bacon	...	Jimmy
Jirantanin Pitakporntrakul	...	Mae
Weeraprawat Wongpuapan	...	Boss Katha
Apichart Chusakul	...	Advisor Bhun (as Abhijati Jusakul)
Suteerush Channukool	...	Number Two
Sahajak Boonthanakit	...	Rajahdon
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gigi Velicitat	...	The Drunk Man

Storyline

In Bangkok, the assassin Curtie Church (Djimon Hounsou) is hired by a businessman to kill six men. Job done, the employer proposes another contract to Curtie to kill the lord of the traffickers that had addicted, prostituted and murdered his daughter. Curtie seeks out the Englishman Jimmy that is an arm dealer and he rents heavy weapons. Then Curtie provokes a war between gangs to eliminate the greatest number of white slave traders. Meanwhile, the young prostitute Mae meets Church and helps him to release other girls. When Mae vanishes, Curtie seeks her out and finds the truth about Mae.

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Plot Keywords:

envelope of money | assassin | girl | prostitute | thailand | 

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Fantasy | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, language, sexual content, some nudity and drug material

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 May 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ojo por ojo

Filming Locations:

Bangkok, Thailand

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Millennium Films, Swingin' Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Djimon Hounsou and Kevin Bacon also appeared in Beauty Shop (2005).

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Goofs

When Curtie is talking to Mae, he pulls out a bag of .50 caliber rifle bullets and starts sharpening the tips of them with a file. While that looks very sinister, it is something a serious shooter would never do. A hand filed tip on a bullet could dramatically alter the flight path and make it highly inaccurate. A filed down bullet would also have a negative impact on the air pressure over the projectile and would compromise the expansion and/or overall penetration. It looked very cool, but a pro would never do that.

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Quotes

Curtie Church: We make our own luck.

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Soundtracks

Prelude, Op. 28, 'Raindrop'
Written by Frédéric Chopin
Arranged by Dave Greendale (BMI)
Arrangement published by Freeplaymusic (BMI)
Courtesy of The Freeplay Music

User Reviews

A mixed bag

Kevin Bacon is probably the best thing about this, although his supposed British accent keeps going 'down under' into Australian. It also looked like it had to be over-dubbed afterwards as he clearly doesn't do accents well.

Djimon Hounsou is very believable, and the action scenes where he partakes in hand-to-hand combat are realistic and well executed. The dialogue is a bit patchy and the Thai characters are mostly your typical one-dimensional China/South East Asian stereotypes. I'm not familiar with the Thai director and I dare say in other hands the film might've been very different, but then access to Thailand may have been more restrictive, so swings and roundabouts.

Kevin bacon's small part is interesting but Djimon Hounsou makes this worth watching, for the integrity of the action if nothing else, but it's perhaps better suited to a home viewing rather than a ticket at the cinema.