From Paris With Love

3/4

Starring: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, John Travolta, Kasia Smutniak, Richard Durden

Rated R for Strong Bloody Violence Throughout, Drug Content, Pervasive Language, and Brief Sexuality

"From Paris With Love" is the action movie equivalent of an energy drink.  It's too carbonated to contain any real substance but it contains lots of energy.  It's similar to, although not quite as stylish as, "Shoot 'Em Up," which was released three years earlier.  If you liked that live action cartoon, you'll like this one.

James Reece (Rhys-Meyers) is a young agent living in Paris.  He's eager to get a promotion and start doing real work, but for the time being he has to moonlight as an aide to the American ambassador (Durden) while performing minor errands like changing license plates.  That all changes when one night (the night that his girlfriend Caroline (Smutniak) proposes to him, no less) he gets a call that one agent is held up at customs and Reece has to get him out and drive him around.  The agent is Charlie Wax (Travolta), a loose cannon who loves guns as much as he loves women.  Charlie is intent on taking down a bunch of terrorists, leaving James to tag along and try to keep up.

The role of Charlie Wax might as well have been tailor made for John Travolta.  Charlie Wax is the kind of foul-mouthed over-the-top maniac that the actor plays so well.  Travolta is clearly having a ball, and he brings to mind his role (well, the majority of it) in John Woo's masterwork, "Face/Off."  Charlie Wax isn't as developed or as strongly written as Castor Troy/Sean Archer, but he's fun to watch nonetheless.  Less impressive is the usually impeccable Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.  The Irish actor is superbly gifted (he should have gotten an Oscar for his performance in "Match Point"), but it takes a certain amount of charisma and screen presence to play a lead in an action movie.  Rhys-Meyers tries his best, and there are times when he succeeds, but he can't stand on his own next to a force of nature like Travolta.  Kasia Smutniak is quite good as James' sexy girlfriend as well.

The film was directed by Pierre Morel, the protoge of Luc Besson.  Besson is the French equivalent of Jerry Bruckheimer; none of his films belong in arthouses.  By and large, they're loud, violent and packed with action.  Morel directed "Taken" (but not its sequel), which I found to be overrated.  Here, he's found a groove, even if it's totally superficial.  With a movie like this, it doesn't really matter.  All that matters is that it contains enough action and adrenaline to satisfy.  It does.

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