Review of The 15:17 to Paris (2018) by Arletta S — 26 Mar 2018

Okay, so, I've seen it now, This movie is BRILLIANT. You know why? It is, in the tradition of Flags of Our Fathers, Heartbreak Ridge, and Letters from Iwo Jima, the truth versus the usual overblown Hollywood fiction, but, ever- so-much-more so. Clint Eastwood did nto use the real guys as the real heroes as a failed gimmick. He has always been unpopular with many critics for putting way too much truth in his movies, regarding racism in American, particularly using real Native Americans in the movies where such characters are, showing the honorable and dishonorable sides of politics and service for police and the military, etc. And, that's what he's done here.

The man whose acting style is known as "Don't just do something, stand there" has shown that real life heroes are not larger than life, perfectly pretty boy do-gooders with perfect lives. They are just human beings who saw something that needed doing and did something about it.

Like I said, when I said I wanted to see it, if you don't think it's brilliant, you just haven't watched it right, yet. I didn't really start to realize how brilliant it was until I walked out and was discussing it with my sister. And, that's when I contrasted it to the show where Nicolas Cage plays a police officer who offers to share with a waitress, if his lottery ticket wins, because, he didn't have a tip for her. As a story, the movie wasn't so bad. As a retelling of the truth, it was horrid. They made it into a romantic story between two people who, in real life, meant nothing like that to each other; and, made the wife look like a horrible human being. When, in fact, she made it clear, in interviews, that she was proud of her husband for what he did.

This movie probably does not get everything perfect. But, it gets you real close to the truth. Which is something you aren't going to get from the news - not in such depth - and it's not something you're going to get from a director that's just concerned about keeping to his own style, upping his reputation.

Clint Eastwood has always taken chances and he's had many movies that were panned. And, yet, they are all movies that newer generations have watched on their own or with the generation that was there when the movie came out. So, yeah - absolute brilliance, just as usual.

So, I'm pretty sure if this isn't amazing to you, or even to me, it's because the viewer isn't watching it right, yet.

You know who he is. You know what he does. You know how much Heartbreak Ridge was hated and how many people who weren't watching it right thought Gran Torino was just a story of a hateful whitey being a bigot. So, watch it again, until you get it right. That's what I'mg going to do, if it doesn't take the first time.