Review of The 15:17 to Paris (2018) by Evangelos C — 27 Feb 2018

So wrong in so many ways. Needed a different angle and tone.

I went in expecting something good but that could've only been true in the hands of myriad of other filmmakers not blinded by their imaginary morality.

Instead of suffocatingly spreading a singular moment of heroism over two hours with holidays on Europe, I have to wonder. Where is Mark Moogalian? He couldn't offer his time for more scenes and an actor was out of question?

Surely the guy who wrestled the tool of mass murder from El-Khazzani (without relying on luck) deserved to share part of the story? Although the creators probably thought common everyday people only deserved their stories told if they contained military-flavored Jujutsu and wandering around Afghanistan. It's annoying how desperately they had to dig in for moments of 'action'.

Skarlatos notes in an interview that the military training didn't really have much to do with dealing with the terrorist himself. He has his brain in the right place. But the creators felt more contained with glorifying the military in the story, painfully missing the point of everyday people doing a spectacular thing. Moogalian got saved and heroes save after all.

That we have this story to tell relied heavily on luck and Moogalian. This is not to reduce the heroes of the day. Just the creators, who made a below-average film to entertain their own fantasies.