From Paris With Love (2010)

I had every intention to begin a steady stream of reviews of Oscar Winning movies today, starting with the Best Picture winner from my birth year, Amadeus. I sat down to enjoy Amadeus last night at about 12:30, when I realized the movie was three hours long. Thus, before my quaint organizational approach to the movie aspect of this blog begins I present for your reading pleasure my review of From Paris With Love.

I chose From Paris With Love because it was literally the first movie that popped up on my Netflix instant queue. Also, I distinctly remember telling myself I was willing to pay to see it, and then never going. Obviously fate was looking out for my wallet in this situation.

This movie is a classic “almost” movie. We’re almost dropped right into the story, which I enjoy greatly in action movies, but instead we’re given a good ten-minute chunk of back story that is at best nominally important to the plot of the movie. As Reece [Jonathan Rhys Meyers] is introduced to the crazy world of (presumably CIA) operative Charlie Wax [John Travolta] we are almost able to identify with him as a character and either root for or against him. The plot does have some originality to it, but because the movie is delivered as a tour de force from the moment Wax is introduced, it is only almost good.

The acting is surprisingly palatable for an action movie, but then again it’s possible that setting Sylvester Stallone movies for my baseline could skew things a bit. Travolta runs from beginning to end showing that cockiness and little bit of crazy that made movies like Broken Arrow and Face/Off fun (that’s right, I said it). Meyers remains appropriately confused throughout the movie as his character is dragged all over France in what is supposedly the mission that will make or break his attempt to crack Field Ops. These two eat up most of the screen time, but as your stereotypical by-the-book/outlaw partner combo they really don’t present anything strikingly new to the genre. The plot does have a few enjoyable twists but their utility is nowhere near maximized, especially the movie’s atypical ending.

Easily the most underrated part of this movie is Travolta’s ridiculous half-Arabian half-biker gang member costuming, which only serves to increase the wanton fun of his character.

Overall, From Paris With Love is a very watchable ninety minutes of movie delivered much in the vein of Jason Statham-style action movies. The critics at Rotten Tomatoes only gave this film 23%, and while I rarely disagree with the Tomatometer, I’m calling it out here.

Rating: 6/10