From Paris With Love

Starring: John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak, Richard Durden, Yin Bing, Amber Rose Revah
Directed by: Pierre Morel
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
2010

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A by-the-book, low-level operative (Jonathan Rhy Meyers) is teamed with a violent, take-no-prisoners spy (John Travolta) to bring down a terrorist cell. The two have completely opposite approaches, but start to see they work well together.

Review:
Tim: From Paris With Love is an action thriller that is fairly content with doing nothing particularly new or exciting. The approach seemed to be not to change the action movie world, but acting in the belief that there simply aren't enough action movies out there. I was surprisingly okay with this. It is true that most movies now need to really set themselves apart from everything else- I am oftentimes critical when they do not. However, there is something to be said about a movie that just tries to be what it is, and nothing more. Everything in this movie are things we've already seen before. Still, it works quite well.

Much of this movie's success comes from its two leads. John Travolta is in full on crazy mode, and there is almost nothing better. Travolta's appearance alone makes me laugh nearly every time I see him. He fully embraced the crazy here, and I appreciated that. Travolta has always worked well when he pushes the boundaries a bit, and he certainly does that here. I also liked Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He played the straight-laced operative very well. He is quite likeable, and I enjoyed his performance here. Rhys Meyers and Travolta worked very well together. These two guys had a great deal of chemistry together, and this is what made the movie work.

While I was mostly fine with From Paris With Love, once in a while I did wish it wouldn't have traveled down the same old paths. Yes, it did this in a very engaging, effective manner, but it did feel a bit too redundant. The action scenes are fairly good, although I wish a few were better choreographed. Several made me laugh with their pure ridiculousness, but this was all in good fun. It was a bit disappointing how much of the middle of the movie felt like a series of events just leading us up to the next action scene. These scenes were all pretty similar- Travolta destroying people left and right while Rhys Meyers cowers in a corner. These could have been better, although I don't want to complain too much. There is something entertaining about watching a goatee-wearing, bald-headed John Travolta kill dozens of people, never getting even a single scratch himself. Silly, yes. Ridiculous and unrealistic, yes. However, it was also fairly entetaining.

While some more effort and a better script (the plot is occasionally a mess) would have made this movie better, I was surprised that I liked it much more than I expected I would. I like these kind of action movies, and Hollywood doesn't make enough of them. Sure, this movie could have been better, but From Paris With Love kept me entertained, and that is oftentimes good enough.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Broken Arrow, Face/Off