From Paris with Love

Sony Pictures

R4 DVD

Director Luc Besson has come up with one of the best action movies I have seen in a long time. Not only that, he has extracted a really good performance from John Travolta, an actor who was looking like a bit of a has-been. Besson’s approach to this film seems to have been that it’s an action movie, so let’s just keep up the action until the end. The boots’n’all approach works and the film is more in the older style that seems to be out of favour now in the U.S. Besson doesn’t worry about too much violence – it simply is a part of the plot.

James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is an advisor to the U.S Ambassador in Paris and he also does some low level jobs for the CIA like planting bugs. He longs to get more involved in field work and his chance comes when he is detailed to partner heavyweight operative Charlie Wax (Travolta). Wax is brash, overbearing and very, very good at his job – which seems to be killing people. Together they rack up the kills and explosions, working their way initially through a major drug cartel and then on to a Pakistani terrorist cell. Charlie is rather proud that he is averaging one kill an hour so far.

The matter now becomes far more personal for James when he finds that his fiancée may be involved with the terrorists. Is he tough enough to handle the job, even with Charlie behind him?

Although most of the characters are played seriously Travolta’s performance contains many little touches of humour that stop the film from becoming too dark. It is a well-made, well balanced film all round.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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