6ixtynin9 Movie Review

Those expecting a raunchy sex comedy from the provocatively titled 6ixtynin9 are in for a severe letdown. What we actually have here is Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's (Last Life in the Universe) first major film, a blood-splattered black comedy that apes Shallow Grave and would later be done more interestingly in Freeze Me.

In the opening scene, Tum (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang) is in the midst of being laid off as a secretary. She gets home and is so despondent she dreams of suicide. The next morning, a package mysteriously arrives at her apartment (#6): It's a box full of cash. Before she can figure out what to do with it, the two thugs who live in apartment 9 come looking for it. You see, that 6 on Tum's door got flipped over... hence the title (literally translated "a funny thing about 6 and 9"). The thugs end up dead, and Tum is faced with disposing of the bodies, while she tries to figure out a way to get out of the country with the cash.

As the body count rises, Ratanaruang doesn't do much with the setup. Limited in vision, badly acted, and sorely in need of some special effects and a soundtrack. Working on an obviously limited budget, Ratanaruang's vision of a cold and uncaring Thai society never gets fully realized due to sloppy filmmaking, Ratanaruang takes a few chances with his story -- and the ending is suitably dramatic -- but Tum is as underdeveloped as her adversaries, and we never really care about her plight to the degree we should.

Aka Sixtynine, Sixty Nine, 69, Rulank talok 69.