Studio Name: Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: R
Disc/Transfer Information: 1080p High Definition 2.35:1 Widescreen; Region 1 (U.S.) Release
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (run in 5.1 configuration)
Director: Pierre Morel
Starring Cast: John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
SYNOPSIS:
While the cover of the Blu-ray box of
From Paris with Love boasts a wildly enthusiastic quote about this being the “best Travolta since PULP FICTION,” I just don’t know about that. What’s more interesting – or disturbing, depending on how you look at things – when doing some Travolta comparisons is that his “Charlie Wax” character he plays in this seems to be an elemental copy of the bursting-with-experlatives “Ryder” character he portrayed in the remake of
Taking of Pelham 1,2,3. Needless to say, the cursing in this film was too excessive, and it seems to be a level of performance Travolta is comfortable with. Don’t get me wrong – Travolta plays this over-the-top, lunatic badass quite convincingly outside of duds like
The Punisher (think
Broken Arrow and
Face/Off), but the constant utilization of the “F” word in pictures such as
From Paris with Love and
Pelham is getting a bit long in the proverbial Travolta tooth as of late. But no matter, you can feel director Pierre Morel’s
Taken-like influence all throughout the rather short 90-minute running time of this film, with pretty ham-fisted fight and action sequences and effective slow-mos as Travolta’s Wax character kicks some serious *** all throughout Paris.
When putting
From Paris with Love under a scrutinizing microscope, it almost has a rather cheap, budget-y feel to it, reminding me of the Wes Craven thriller
Red Eye. It’s difficult to put into words, but you know the sensation when it hits you. The characterization is on the weak side as well, with a plot that contains too much meandering until it gets to where it needs to be. Jonathan Rhys Meyers portrays James Reece, a personal aide to the U.S. ambassador to France who is moonlighting as a low-level CIA operative, although most of this isn’t made clear in the least bit. His boss, the ambassador, feels he wants to give Reece an opportunity to better himself and his career, so he gives him an assignment which is to partner up with a special CIA agent who’s coming to France on a special assignment, Charlie Wax (Travolta). There is an important connection to Reece’s smokin’ French fiancé and this entire plot, and I simply cannot give that away if you haven’t seen this yet. Reece goes to French customs to meet and greet Wax, where he finds an animated, cursing, out-of-control Travolta (portraying Wax) demanding his energy drinks be allowed through the customs line. When Reece springs him from the customs waiting area, he discovers, as the two of them drive in Reece’s Cadillac Escalade, why Wax didn’t want customs to see what was inside the cans of his energy drink – this is where Wax stashes his special weaponry. Why a high-level CIA operative had to come through customs to begin with like an ordinary citizen is beyond me and offers an example of yet another mysterious plot hole here, but I suppose one can argue that it was to ensure Travolta’s character’s secret of being a CIA operative.
Travolta plays the wisecracking, cursing and wildly erratic Wax as well as he played Ryder in
Pelham, and as I mentioned, the performances are nearly identical. Wax demands Reece take him to a Chinese restaurant that is supposed to have the best chop suey around, and once there, one of the more exciting action setpieces of the film unfolds, where Wax proves through varying usage of his machine guns, how this restaurant is a major cover for a cocaine operation. While it seems it has been made clear to us what Wax is there to do, that is, take down some high-end drug dealers, there’s another angle that makes the plot more head-scratching and tiresome. It seems Wax is also looking for a terrorist cell there in Paris. But the aforementioned Chinese restaurant sequence and others rival the nail-biting hand to hand combat scenes involving a kick-*** Liam Neeson in
Taken, and in terms of action,
From Paris with Love delivers on some fronts.
The remainder of the film tracks Charlie and James partnering up to uncover these terrorist operations in varying parts of the city, but an interesting subplot develops, as I hinted at, involving Reece’s sexy new fiancé and her “best friend” that host a dinner for the men one evening at Reece’s apartment – all I am going to say about that is, these foxy ladies are
not what they appear to be.
Although riddled with explosive action sequences and gunfights galore, the pace clip of
From Paris with Love still feels a bit rushed and makes the script seem undeveloped in many ways; although the back of the Blu-ray box claims this is a film with a 93 minute run time, the reality is that includes the credit sequence – the film itself clocked in at less than 90 minutes, giving it even more of a
Taken-like feel. At the end, this was a decent evening’s rental, but there’s nothing really more to it to give it a better rating; Travolta’s performance, while addicting in certain parts, has been seen and done before and the excessive swearing by all the characters got tiresome. I will discuss this further in the Recommendations and Summary portion.
CONTINUED BELOW...
