Review: Nam Prig Lhong Rua (Navy Boys)

• Directed by Worapoj Pothineth
• Starring Amarin Nitiphon, Supaksorn Chaimongkol, Note Chern-yim, Somphong Kunapratom, Somlek Sakdikul, Kirk Schiller
• Released in Thai cinemas on March 9, 2006

I was trying to see another movie and in a mix up at the box office, I ended up watching this. I had a chance to bail, and I blew that chance, figuring, "well, how bad can this be?"

It's pretty bad.

Note Chern-yim plays a Navy colonel (the Navy has colonels?) who must form a special ops team to take out some arms smugglers (comic bad guy Somchai Sakdikul and and perennial heavy Black Pomthong).

The team he puts together are a bunch of ex-Navy reprobates - a cheating gambler (Amarin Nitiphon, who's cast in the hero role), an alcoholic and a limping explosives expert.

When the rest of team arrives and sees they must be paired up with a fourth member of the team - a transvestite - they balk, and start spewing a lot of anti-gay venom.

Then they find out they are to trained by a hot chick lieutenant (Supaksorn Chaimongkol from Dangerous Flowers and destined to be Thai film's "it" girl this year). So the guys are in.

For the better part of an hour, the homosexual hate jokes are let fly with abandon. And when they aren't making fun of the transvestite, they are trying to scheme their way into getting into their sexy lieutenant's pants.

Cue the bikini scene.

And then the warm fuzzy moments.

Each member has a dream of what their going to do when they are successful. The hero wants to open a computer school, the drunk wants his own boat and the limping guy wants to repair his daughter's eyesight, which she lost in an explosives mishap.

Finally, they get to the target - an island party where the gun smugglers turn out to all be transvestites - including Somlek Sakdikul, who is tastefully dressed and tressed. He's truly a sight to behold, even with the moustache.

Backing up Somchai are a pair of yellow-track-suited women with cotton-candy-colored hair. The "Kill Bill" girls and Somlek are the best things the movie has going for it, and it's truly sad when they are all disposed of.

And when it's over, of course, the transvestite agent proved her (his?) bravery and won the respect of her teammates, who all give up their own dreams, no matter how altruistic, to pay tribute to her by opening up a transvestite cabaret where they are all performers.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)