From Paris with Love

Director: Pierre Morel
Cast: John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak and Richard Durden
Releasing in cinemas: 18 February 2010
Rated: MA 15+

Shoot-em-up, si vous plait

There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are just plain dumb movies. John Travolta's latest on-screen romp, From Paris with Love, definitely falls into the "plain dumb" category. The thing about these types of films is that any kind of conventional analysis goes out the door and you're left with a more fundamental question - was it fun? On that score, and with a few reservations, From Paris with Love generally succeeds.

At its heart, this film is basically an internationalised version of the standard cop-buddy movie - a kind of Lethal Weapon in Europe if you will. It's also transported from the standard cop-and-robbers scenario to spies-and-terrorists; but that really makes little difference. This is an action movie with ten times as many bullets flying as there are words in the script.

While John Travolta gets top billing, the film is actually shown from the perspective of James Recce (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Reece is a junior CIA operative working his way up the ranks via a position at the US Embassy in Paris. His work is pretty low-level stuff (changing licence plates on cars, for example) until he's asked to "rescue" newly-arrived agent Charlie Wax (Travolta) from the clutches of French Customs. That achieved, Reece is thrown into a chaotic world of drug gangs and extremist terror cells that comes as quite a shock to his system. Similarly, Wax's shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach is rather unnerving for him. The rampageous Wax also threatens Reece's relationship with his fiancee Caroline (Kasia Smutniak); but slowly Reece comes to see that there might be method in his madness.

Director Pierre Morel (whose previous film was Taken with Liam Neeson) cut his teeth as a cinematographer and it shows in some brilliantly composed shots and excellently staged action sequences. It has to be said though that the script by Adi Hasak from Luc Besson's original story is schoolboy stuff. Character development is thrown out the window amidst all the action; the plot's centrepiece twist is telegraphed so far in advance few will be surprised when it arrives and the less said about most of the dialogue, the better.

However, as I mentioned, all that kind of analysis is largely pointless. This is a movie about having fun; albeit against the backdrop of global geo-politics and political assassination. Here, Morel is clearly more in his element. The action positively zips along, the set-pieces are exciting enough and there's a liberal smattering of humour throughout the whole thing. Most importantly though, Morel doesn't take things too seriously. It would have been tempting to try to make some political statement, but thankfully he had the nous to steer away from that. Indeed, the final scene would suggest he's more interested in growing the film into a franchise than he is about scoring political points.

Travolta seems to have a great deal of fun as Wax, and it's actually hard to imagine another actor giving the character quite the same on-screen presence. Some of the lines he has to utter are cringe-worthy (notably in the "Royale with cheese" scene), but he nonetheless makes you believe the character would say those things. By comparison, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is more restrained - not unexpectedly - but still manages to pull off the role; even if that means spending a lot of time getting out of Travolta's way. Perhaps the biggest revelation is the appearance of Kasia Smutniak as Caroline. Although she's certainly attractive, her acting more than keeps pace with the two principals, especially considering she's Polish and English is not her first language.

Although it's at times monumentally stupid, I found myself grinning and chuckling for much of From Paris with Love. While this is a fairly basic shoot-em-up action flick, it never tries to be anything else. Morel also thankfully mostly eschews the kind of brain-grating music that always seems to accompany these types of movies, adding at least a small touch of class. For what it is, From Paris with Love is an OK film - even a fun one if you give it a chance.

David Edwards