Review: From Paris With Love
There’s a strong sense of familiarity with From Paris With Love. Whatever it does feels like you’ve seen it before and during the 90 minute running time not once did I feel like I was watching something new and intriguing. That being said, there wasn’t any need for director Pierre Morel to break the mould: what you see works well enough, even if it isn’t the first time it’s been done.
Personal aide to the US Ambassador in France James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) wants to work for the CIA. He has a French girlfriend, a good job and a generally risk-free life but he’s looking for a new lease of life to find some action. The CIA give him his first big job of partnering up with unorthodox loose cannon Charlie Wax (John Travolta). They find themselves wrapped up in a deeper plot than they had first thought and they must work together to prevent a terrorist attack.
It’s the kind of plot that’s rife with non-believability and generic moments – male lead character wants to be a spy, hard case agent teaches him the tricks of the trade, inevitable plot twist leads to a realisation, aspiring spy becomes who he wants to be after life-altering moment. From Paris With Love follows all the right conventions that make an acceptable action flick without ever trying anything too risque.
Travolta’s character is supposed to be in the same vein as Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs or Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon – the wild child who doesn’t play by the rules. Ironically the film plays by the rules of action star characterisation by giving Charlie Wax several silly character traits to give him an “edge”. He likes fast food (watch for the brilliantly placed Pulp Fiction reference that ties to this), he’s married to his gun and he’s bald.
Two characters who are as generic as each other, no matter how hard they try. Can't really fault the actors though: there's no escaping the predictability here.
I’m betting the scriptwriters gave themselves pats on the back for their ingenuity when it came to creating the individual characters. I’d have slapped them for their genericism. Travolta’s character is everything action film lovers want from a gun-toting, no-holds-barred, unpredictable gunslinger but he’s everything that everyone else hates to see. The same could be said for Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character, who is meant to be the likeable male lead who is forced into the inevitable life-changing scenario and realisation. This kind of predictability and unavoidable stereotype is textbook action film.
It’s annoyingly watchable, like watching a compilation video of people falling over. You’re not sure why you like it and you’ve seen videos like it before but you watch it anyway. You have this sickly feeling that you shouldn’t enjoy watching it but you may as well just sit back and let the banality wash over you regardless.
Overall Impressions:
From Paris With Love isn’t a masterpiece of modern cinema, it’s just an hour and a half of stuff blowing up, people shooting people, John Travolta being a bald-headed badass, bad one-liners, some well-shot scenes and a generic action feel. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad film though.
Don’t expect to find something new and exciting here – what you see in From Paris With Love is what you’ve probably already seen a hundred times before. It’s very much a case of don’t fix what ain’t broken here: the film plays it safe, giving the audience the trademarks of modern action films without ever trying to be bold and unique.
From Paris With Love is commonplace fodder for the action movie lovers and nothing more.
Rating: 
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