US Diplomatic aide James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers – Match Point) leads a double life in Paris as a secret service operative. He is tasked with important but mundane tasks like bugging rooms and stealing keycards. He longs to get a promotion and become a fully fledged agent and it seems that his dream will soon become a reality. His latest mission is to escort an American CIA agent named Charlie Wax (John Travolta – Grease) around town as he looks to break apart a terrorist cell operating in close proximity to the World Leaders summit. The duo couldn’t be more opposite in their methods but must somehow find a way to work together in order to find the terrorists before they strike.
John Travolta is back and in crazy mode once again. It’s a fun ride watching the ridiculously named Charlie Wax tear through Paris to try and find terrorists. It’s never dull and with some hilarious one-liners thrown in, Wax is a character you won’t forget soon. Jonathan Rhys Meyers seems out of (or should that be beneath) his depth as James Reece, the idealistic agent looking to prove his worth in the field. He even sports one of the most ridiculous moustaches you’ll ever see. Together, the duo have some undeniable chemistry but it just doesn’t work as well as it should onscreen.
It seems that modern cinema has forgotten how to create a good cop duo. On paper it looks easy to do but somehow, we have haven’t had any great partnerships on our screens for years. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are probably the last duo to really nail the concept. Travolta and Rhys Meyers fall way short of hitting those marks and with the patchy dialogue and incoherent set-pieces of From Paris With Love, they never will.
Why aren’t we seeing Clooney and Cage together onscreen? Or Cruise and Pitt? Maybe it’s worth revisiting the cliché-ridden older cop and plucky new recruit concept. Surely Clint Eastwood has one last hurrah to deliver in action movies. Gran Torino proved that not only has he still got it, he never lost it in the first place. Whilst I commend the possibility of Travolta and Rhys Meyers as a plausible and likeable onscreen duo, this script falls way short of giving them any decent material to work with and that’s a real shame.
Having Pierre Morel onboard as director immediately fills you with confidence that this will be high-octane action moulded in the same clay as his previous effort Taken (with Liam Neeson). Sadly it looks like Taken was a fluke as this film feels rushed and dated. The slo-mo gunfights feel too fake and make you wonder why From Paris With Love wasn’t a straight-to-DVD release in the first place. Producer Luc Besson isn’t renowned for his biting dialogue either and sadly this film has more in common with The Transporter 3 than it does with Leon. Expect underwritten female leads, sickly sweet romantic dialogue and some very, very ropey accents throughout.
The film also jumps into some ridiculous scenarios for no reason whatsoever. Travolta and Rhys Meyers take a chance at blowing their cover by infiltrating a known prostitution den just to gain access to a room overlooking a bank. Why not just wait in a car outside the bank? How can a terrorist smuggle a chest-strapped bomb through a metal detector at a world summit and why does Reece feel pressure to take cocaine when there is no logical reason for him to do so? All of these questions and more are waiting for you when you see From Paris With Love.
It’s a mess at times but for sheer lunacy From Paris With Love is worth a cautionary watch. It has a great car chase (Volvo vs. Audi for those interested) and some of the gun play is fun and unpredictable. Maybe you will be able to figure out why Wax and Reece do these absurd and random things during an active case. I couldn’t. If Luc Besson’s track record holds firm I expect a sequel will be on the cards sooner rather than later. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Jonathan Rhys Meyers could use a second crack at nailing this character and improving his American accent whilst Travolta with his crazy hat on is always worth revisiting. From Paris With Love screams of a missed opportunity that had all the ingredients to be the new Taken and the next Bad Boys rolled into one. Instead it all feels a little half baked.
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