From Paris With Love review

Easily I could sit here and tell you how retarded almost every second of "From Paris With Love" is. I mean so much of it is idiotic violence and John Travolta flying off the handle and going Chow Yun-Fat on a room of bad guys. But yeah you should've gathered that from the trailer. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Travolta's young blooded, less than a rookie partner, who's trying his best to keep up with all the crazy, blood letting being done by Travolta's Charlie Wax. It's filled with typical spy action cliches including a final act which has a hilarious revelation about a relationship one is having and one of those crazy, impossible shots that the hero must make to stop the bad guys. And yet I had lots of fun with this. No surprise considering the glee I get from watching fairly stereotypical junk food movies like this, but sometimes junk food can do the trick and this does the trick and throws in another for good measure.

Now some of you might wonder exactly why or how could I like this, despite all it's generalizations and been there before moments and yet might hate a fan favorite like... oh... I don't know... "The Boondock Saints"; yeah let's roll with that one. The reason is all in how things are done. Both are violent movies that follow pretty road weary ideas, have lots of jokes and character dynamics very familiar to us. However "From Paris With Love" has that euro-action energy. The kind of stuff that's not quite the same in the states anymore and that's probably because we did that so much in the 90's, but writer-producer Luc Besson (aka Euro-Bruckheimer minus all the kiddie crap) and director Pierre Morel know how to make basic action movies still fun enough that it's worth your time.

Morel began as a director of photography and camera man and has worked his way into the action filmmakers position quite well with "District 13", which I think is still his best film, last year's sleeper hit "Taken", which I think is good, but nothing more than that. And now this which is a great throwback to the stuff we might have seen Shane Black write. Movies like "The Last Boyscout" or "The Long Kiss Goodnight" that were over the top, run of the mill stories, but were made fun because of the characters and the vision behind it. Personally I love loud mouth Travolta more than quiet, subtle, real Travolta. It's because he seems like he's having more fun like that and able to really let loose, and he lets loose here big time. From banging hookers to doing cocaine in the Eiffel Tower, to swinging through a window to off some bad guys all while insulting everyone in his way; he's just having a blast. Meyers plays the nervous, young guy pretty well, but is faced with a really tough choice at the end of the film. In fact it's a choice that really was important to everything and it's unclear whether or not it was the whole hearted right choice.

The shoot outs were done with an almost old school John Woo like skill, which is to say it's almost effortless looking. This is something that Morel began with in "District 13" with the parkour and did very well in the rough and tumble fight scenes of "Taken". It's not all blood and guts, but the blood there is something a lot of 'those' other R-rated actions for some reason often lack unless for a big moment, but then skims over the rest of the movies violence. The other great thing about euro action is that at no time does it ever attempt of even think it's anything more than an outlandish action picture. That's what makes it fun. That bravado and mood so you're always aware that the makers are aware how ridiculous it all is and that everyone's just out to have fun and there's nothing wrong with that.

After seeing this my two biggest questions are A: could this become Besson's second American produced franchise, as it does have the moves to become more than one film if handled properly. And B: just what will Morel's next picture feel like. I should mention that said next picture is going to be big. Not just big, but mega, super giant big. Morel is taking a stab at bringing the classic sci-fi adventure novel "Dune" to the big screen (it was done in the 80's by David Lynch and it didn't work out too well). However he has also decided that he will write it was well, so I'm really interested in hearing his literary voice mixed with his visuals and seeing what his "Dune" world will look. And considering he's a massive fan of the book (something he's proven in interviews) I'm expecting big things.