From Paris With Love: movie review
John Travolta stars in 鈥楩rom Paris With Love,鈥� a comedy-thriller-action movie that falls short on all three counts.
Actors Jonathan Rhys Meyers, left, and John Travolta are shown in a scene from "From Paris With Love."
Rico Torres/AP
What movie features John Travolta as a gunslinger with a startling hairstyle who craves a 鈥淩oyale with cheese鈥� 鈥� i.e., a McDonald鈥檚 Quarter Pounder with cheese?
If you answered 鈥�Pulp Fiction,鈥� you鈥檙e only half right. In the new thriller 鈥�From Paris With Love,鈥� Travolta, playing an unscrupulous CIA special agent, sports a shaved head. He also has a nasty goatee. Despite the obvious in-joke references to 鈥淧ulp Fiction,鈥� Travolta鈥檚 leather-jacketed, bling-festooned look here mostly reminded me of his biker baddie in 鈥�Wild Hogs,鈥� not a movie I wish to be reminded of.
Without Travolta鈥檚 Charlie Wax cavorting about Paris shooting off his guns 鈥� and his mouth 鈥� this movie would be much the poorer. It鈥檚 pretty poor anyway. I realize logic doesn鈥檛 play a central role in movie narratives anymore, especially in thrillers, but 鈥淔rom Paris With Love鈥� lowers the bar, and then some. This is the kind of movie where the only reason things happen is because it says so in the script. Example: When an American diplomat in a motorcade is told that a security threat necessitates a change of itinerary, she haughtily vetoes the idea 鈥� and runs right into an ambush. In these kinds of movies, common sense is always trumped by big explosions.
Wax鈥檚 counterpart is James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a personal aide to the US ambassador to France, who has a lissome French girlfriend (Kasia Smutniak) and moonlights as a low-level CIA errand boy. Wax鈥檚 arrival is Reese鈥檚 first senior-level assignment, and before long, the two are waist-deep in corpses. (鈥淲ax鈥檚 playbook is a bit unorthodox,鈥� Reese is warned.) But since this is a movie about squelching a terrorist plot, director Pierre Morel, working from a screenplay by Adi Hasak based on a story by the omnipresent Luc Besson, has no qualms about upping the carnage count. His film is simultaneously timely and sleazy. The timeliness is intended to buy off the sleaziness. (I鈥檓 not buying.)
Even if you鈥檙e not very good at figuring out plots, 鈥淔rom Paris With Love鈥� won鈥檛 crease your thinking cap. When Reese鈥檚 too-perfect girlfriend slips her late father鈥檚 wedding ring on his finger, you can see what鈥檚 coming a kilometer away. The big tip-off: She proposes to him. This is just not the way things are done in France.
Rhys Meyers is always better when he鈥檚 playing heels, as in 鈥�Match Point鈥� and TV鈥檚 鈥淭he Tudors,鈥� and here he鈥檚 just too nice. I realize the niceness is meant to contrast with Wax鈥檚 shoot-first-ask-questions-later belligerence, but the counterpoint feels forced, as if the filmmakers were setting up a new 鈥�Lethal Weapon鈥�-style buddy franchise. Just what we don鈥檛 need.
Amid all the mayhem, there is Paris in all its faded-light glory. Is the movie worth seeing as a travelogue? Only if you are (a) a masochist, (b) a terrorist, or (c) desperate. Grade: C- (Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, drug content, pervasive language, and brief sexuality.)