Movie Review: From Paris With Love (2010)
92 Minutes
Undoubtedly one of most disjointed films I have seen in a long time and one of the worst films from Luc Besson. The only saving grace is wondering what John Travolta was going to say or do next! I am very happy that I waited to see this on DVD and also that I only paid a $1 through Redbox. From Paris With Love was only somewhat tolerable. This is a far cry from Taken, Pierre Morel and Luc Besson really fell far with this film.
I will start off with the only aspects of the film I liked, John Travolta. He plays a Charlie Wax who is definitely a non-traditional spy who shoots first and asks questions later. His role as Charlie Wax has been related to his role in Pulp Fiction. I can see some similarities with the quick delivery of the lines and the fact that he is a loose cannon, but this is definitely that good of a movie. They also pay homage to the Royale with Cheese which seemed silly and useless to the film to me.
The other aspect of the movie that is worthwhile is the action sequences. They are decent at best but I enjoy a film with a high body count. I wish that they had played into the campiness of this movie and had a tally going on in the corner of the screen with each dead body. That would have been so much better in my mind.
Now onto the bad parts of From Paris With Love. Where to begin, there is just so many bad aspects. First, the film is horribly edited and disjointed from the beginning. I felt that the first act and build up of the Rhys Meyer’s character did not make sense and just seemed to have poor timing. As usual with so many action films, the best parts of the movie are already shown during the trailers. There is not one single action sequence that has not been shown during the trailer. This just pisses me off so much lately, it is almost as if the directors and producers know that they film is crap so they are trying to lure in as many people into the theaters before word of mouth gets out about how bad the film is.
The script is horrible. No matter how good of an actor you are, if the script and writers are not good then it will show on screen. Jonathan Rhys Meyers has such horrible line delivery in this and I cant truly fault him because the lines he has to work with are utter crap. Not only is the script bad but the plot is horrible. The true reason for the mission is not fully expressed until the latter part of the film so that the audience is forced to buy into what seems like senseless violence. I am all for a high body count and actually enjoy it, but I am a weird person. To me it always helps to have a method to the madness. For instance, everyone hates Nazi’s and that is why the violence of Inglorious Basterds makes sense. From Paris With Love should have let the audience in on what type of terrorist plot was going so they could rally behind the characters.
John Travolta and a high body count are the two reasons that this film was tolerable for me. I hope that you did not spend money on this piece of crap in the theaters. Be aware that the script, the editing and the overall story is so disjointed that you will feel like you are a bullet whizzing through the air without a direction.
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