From Paris With Love – Travolta Shoots Paris

After my second viewing of ‘From Paris With Love,’ part of me thinks that I must have been in a lot more of a ‘forgiving’ mood the first time I watched it (hence the desire to sit through it again).  Okay, it’s not a bad-bad film, but part of me is left wondering what I saw in it the first time round.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays a young US diplomat in Paris who is tasked with ‘babysitting’ US enforcer/hardman (and borderline Government psycho/assassin) John Travolta.  In the course of their day of investigating a terrorist threat they wind up executing pretty much the entire population of Paris (or at least its criminal element).  And, er, that’s about it.  They go a restaurant, kill everybody and move on to an apartment block… where they kill everybody and move on.  Rinse and repeat.

And, if you like either or both John Travolta and action movies then you’ll at least get what you paid for here.  However, don’t expect much in the way of ‘deep and meaningful.’ Rhys Meyers is effectively the ‘conservative-straight-man’ agent in comparison to Travolta’s completely wild nut-job, therefore it’s a lot more fun watching Travolta go crazy than Ryhs Meyers trying to add something in the way of ‘heart’ to the story.

I notice from the marketing that it was directed by the man that did ‘Taken.’ It’s not as good as ‘Taken,’ but it is a functional little action movie that will fill a hole in your schedule if that’s all you’re looking for.  The action is reasonable enough, but nothing that you haven’t seen before, i.e. shoot-outs, punching and the obligatory car chase (followed by a one-liner from Travolta).  It was okay, but I doubt I’ll give it a third watch.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that