There comes a point in everyone's life when they have to ask themselves where their elephant has gone. Slaving through the day to day grind it's easy to loose track of the important things in life. Even though it is cliché to say that you don't know what you have until it is gone -even if it is an elephant- it's the truth. Man's eternal struggle to be reunited with his elephant is the theme explored in Tom yum goong a.k.a. The Protector.

In The Protector Tony Jaa plays Kham, a young man who's family is in the elephant raising business. We know how much the pachyderm lifestyle means to Kham because the scenes of him growing up with the elephants are shot with a circle of Vaseline smeared around the lens. The effect was probably supposed to convey a hazy sense of warm memories and nostalgia but it instead it looks like a ring of slime is obstructing the screen. Then again, up to a third of the film is shot with the slime ring in effect so perhaps it was a stylistic choice by director Prachya Pinkaew instead. Whatever the case is, Kham likes his elephants and the elephants like him.

Outside of some Magical World of Disney shenanigans life with the elephants is peaceful until the day a group of elephant-nappers kill Kham's father and steal his elephants. Before I proceed further a word about these elephant robbers. I don't know what the going price of an elephant is on the free market but it has to be cheaper than what the overhead for this illegal operation must be. Smuggling elephants out of Thailand to Australia can't be cheap, never mind the cost of keeping an army of goons and assorted strong-arm men on the payroll. The size and scope of the international organization involved in this odd crime is stunning. An organization that has resources to rival a small nation would be a fearsome opponent for anyone, especially since Kham decides he's going to rescue his elephants all on his own. The world is a large and lonely place, especially when you are one man up against such a wildly complex elephant stealing system.

Oh, did I mention that Kham is trained in Muai Thai and has terrific kickboxing skills? I probably should have brought that up earlier since it's fairly important.

For most of its running time The Protector falls into the happy routine of Kham going somewhere, yelling "Where is my elephant?" or "Give me back my elephant!" or some variation thereof, kicking everyone when they fail to return said elephant, and then moving on somewhere else. There may have been a plot in there but it was lost somewhere on the road between Thailand and my local theater. A full 27 minutes were dropped in the version I saw and while it may have made the story less comprehensible I don't think it actually hurt the movie as a whole. If the edits were of nothing but plot the cuts may have done the audience a favor. The version of the film I saw was a lean 81 minutes and even then that seemed like more than enough for the segments of the film that didn't involve kicking. While on the subject of the story I should mention the co-stars such as Petchtai Wongkamlao as Mark, one of the many Thai immigrants that for some reason filled the ranks of the Sydney Metropolitan Police Department and Bongkoj Khongmalai as Pla, who works as some sort of mud bath tramp. I'm not quite sure what her exact job was but her scene at work was one of the few non-action pieces that made me sit up in my seat.

Even if the plot didn't always engage or make a lick of sense the appearance of the film was enough to hold my interest. The Protector had this look about it that was as amazing as it was incompetent. It was as if the film had been shot in 1984 using film stock from 1904. For example, at one point a gang of rollerbladers wielding light bulbs came storming out of nowhere the moment a gong sounded. They then proceeded to skate about and fight Kham in one of those abandoned car warehouses that you only find in old music videos and martial arts films. The entire scene is as exciting as it is ridiculous but because it looks like it was filmed using found supplies it somehow works. Scattered randomly amongst all this nonsense are one or two segments of amazing technical ability. A one point Kham fights his way up a building in a single, protracted take that's a joy to behold. It's as if Orson Welles had dedicated his cinematic skills to the ass kicking arts. But the moment a terrific scene ends the film goes back to doing what it does best which is shots of Kham hanging around with elephants. Either there's the potential for a well made movie buried underneath all that malarkey or else the film makers blew their budget on the stunt scenes and elephant rental fees.

I don't want to make it seem like I'm being overly harsh on The Protector but it's one of those films that succeeds in spite of projecting a feeling that not only have the people making the film never made a movie before but have never even seen a movie before. When a rich and powerful character displays his prestige by riding a Segway scooter down a hallway -and the movie plays the scene straight- you know you're watching something special. The Protector may not be good in the strictest sense of the word but it is entertaining and certainly not the sort of thing that comes along everyday. Oh, and did I mention the elephants?

If you have questions, comments, or news on the whereabouts of my elephant drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com. If you are done here kick on back to either the Fourth Movie or Main page.