Review of From Paris with Love (2010) by Melvin W — 29 Jul 2012

Wax: Welcome to Paris, baby.

"Two agents. One city. No merci.".

From Paris with Love is a ridiculous,  moronic, gun toting, zero brain having action thriller. There's no originality to be had with this one. From start to finish it's a standard, all action movie; and thank God for that because when they stop long enough to speak is when it gets unwatchable. So I obviously hated the movie, right? Wrong. Come on... it may be stupid, it may be unoriginal, but it's 90 minutes of pure popcorn fun. Not all movies have to change the world. This one certainly didn't, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. .

An American embassy worker in Paris gets pulled into a terrorist plot when he is told to pick up a special ops agent named Wax. The two run around Paris getting in shootouts, car chases, and anything else you can think of. Hell for half the movie, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is carrying a vase full of cocaine. It's not an intelligent thriller, but it makes up for it with knowing just how bad it is. Nobody involved here thought they were doing anything more than making a dumb action movie. When a film is aware of just how moronic it is, it almost makes up for it.

The film also doesn't overstay its small welcome. When the film actually starts, it ends up running around an hour. The first half hour is just introductory bullshit. I even had fun watching that. There's definitely a certain satisfaction I got from watching Travolta be even crazier than normal. Plus, he has a nice little Royale with Cheese to remind everyone that he has starred in a smart action movie before. I always like a nice little allusion.

Not good. I'll be the first to admit that, but if you are willing to throw your brain away for an hour and a half and just bask in the ridiculousness of everything that is this movie; you could potentially have a lot of fun. Actually, I just watched it for the second time, yet it felt like the first. Probably because I forgot the whole movie twenty minutes after watching it, which will probably happen again this time. It's a movie that will always feel like the first time.