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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Cop-buddy picture pure processed fromage

By: Randall King

5/02/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

As rogue operative Charlie Wax, John Travolta is firing on all cylinders.

Forget the French reputation for snobbery. The title of this action-buddy movie succinctly describes the perverse affection of some French filmmakers and cineastes for Hollywood genre films that get little respect on the side of the Atlantic... action-buddy movies, for example.

In the realm of the action flick, French director Pierre Morel has made a couple of significant contributions that equal or top most Hollywood action fare, such as the terrific District 13 and last year's nasty but effective Paris-set thriller Taken.

MovieReview

From Paris With Love
Starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne
14A
Three stars out of five

Yet another Morel collaboration with writer-producer Luc Besson, this crackling espionage movie plays like an Americanized variation of the 1984 French cop comedy My New Partner (Les ripoux), in which a seasoned, thoroughly corrupt cop introduces his straitlaced partner to the wicked ways of the world.

Just replace intimate comedy with huge action set pieces ... avec bazookas, s'il vous plaît.

Here, the straight man is low-level intelligence operative James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an ambitious functionary keeping his head down in the office of the United States Ambassador in France.

Reece must say au revoir to secrecy and discretion when he is suddenly partnered with a loose-cannon operative named Charlie Wax (John Travolta), ostensibly sent to de-activate a Chinese drug ring operating in Paris. Charlie sasses French customs agents, he smuggles in his own gun into the country, and he's not above snorting a little evidentiary cocaine or employing the services of prostitutes in the course of his work.

Ordered to help Charlie, Reece is swept along like a rubber duck in a riptide as bad bald Charlie blasts his way through Paris on a mission that, it dawns on Reece, goes beyond narcotic trafficking, and may ensnare his own girlfriend Caroline (Kasia Smutniak).

Genuflecting to Travolta's star power (and especially his affiliation with Quentin Tarantino -- you'll know it when you see it), the film more closely resembles processed American cheese as opposed to the subtler pleasures of a slice of Camembert.

Here, the subtlety belongs to the British Rhys Meyers, who holds his own while providing a reserved foil to Travolta's manic, trigger-happy spy.

Travolta fulfils his part with aplomb, injecting the proceedings with good old-fashioned star quality. Given that all he seems to be doing these days is over-the-top (see also: Old Dogs; The Taking of Pelham 123, Hairspray), his rock 'n' roll rottweiler here has sufficient cool cachet to remind us why we liked him in the first place.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Other Voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of From Paris With Love.

This is John Travolta's most enjoyable and energetic performance since Pulp Fiction and Primary Colors, and he's a blast to watch.

-- Rene Rodrigues, Miami Herald

From Paris With Love is a "fun trash" movie that's more trash than fun.

-- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Travolta has/is a blast in an action-thriller-comedy that otherwise comes up short on all three counts.

-- Michael Rechtshaffen, Hollywood Reporter

(Director Pierre Morel) brings in lobotomized entertainment at 90-odd minutes. During the February doldrums, this cannot be underestimated.

-- Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice

Basically a bloody buddy picture that tries too hard.

-- Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

From Paris With Love is an object lesson in the realities of what the Obama administration once euphemized as "man-made disaster."

-- Armond White, New York Press

We all know how rotten today's movies can be, but even at the bottom of the slag pit, you won't find a load of garbage any smellier than From Paris With Love.

-- Rex Reed, New York Observer

-- Compiled by Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 5, 2010 D4

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