Review of The 15:17 to Paris (2018) by Danny L — 19 Feb 2018

A fascinating, inspirational, film by America's greatest living director, Clint Eastwood, whose basic theme is that even the flawed and ordinary are capable of great heroic actions. However, BE WARNED: if you are a politically correct Democrat Atheist who hates America, despises the military, suffers from "white guilt," yet feels superior to those who advocate Judeo-Christian values, then you will revile every minute of this film, with every molecule of your being. Furthermore, if you believe the rights of illegal aliens are far more important than those of USA citizens...if you are a confused member of the LGBT or feminist movements, who believes Islamists deserve special protections, even though most Islamists are committed to the dissemination of Sharia Law that would enslave women and tyrannize the LGBT...then you likely will condemn vociferously this new Eastwood gem. Most importantly, if you belong to certain tribal professions (e.g., film/TV production, film/TV agencies, film/TV actors, film/TV reviewers, etc.) that support the upheaval of society in every aspect, from gay marriage to transgender bathrooms, EXCLUDING anything that might disrupt the dismal Hollywood status quo, then you venomously will denounce 15:17 To Paris. In particular, if you are a typical shallow unemployed actor who spent thousands of hours in drama classes costing your exasperated daddy and mommy thousands of $$$ in pointless tuition, then you will be humiliated, enraged,and insanely jealous to witness the raw realism that three professional soldiers brought to the screen. You will be overcome with such envy that you will place furious posts upon R-T, raging against the usage of non-actors, even begging others to avoid the great film, because those in the Arts genuinely believe that all the rewards of our society (especially money and fame) should only flow to "creatives," while mere soldiers should be content simply to receive shiny medals and pats on the back.

When you consider Eastwood's elderly age, then what is especially impressive and remarkable is that he just released the most rebellious, disruptive film seen in Hollywood since Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. It threatens the brain dead, automatic-pilot, aspect of Hollywood's modus operandi in so many ways...first, it dares to use non-actors in featured performances and that is absolutely intolerable to the actors/agents/managers who earn multi-millions for a profession that is obscenely overpaid by juxtaposition to most others. Worse yet, 15:17 To Paris challenges the iconography of our society, by asserting that soldiers can better interpret their own admirable stories than actors, whose typically insipid preoccupations revolve around drug addiction, materialism, sexual indulgence, and the most insufferable narcissism (Hello, Shia LaBoof!). As guardians of the Hollywood Brainwash Machine, the film/TV reviewers strive to shape populist perspectives and so it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of film/TV reviewers have received their marching orders to condemn Eastwood's cinematic heresy, lest it become a rampant plague that infects the Hollywood Weltanschauung, a stale point of view that has yet to undergo a radical ideological shake-up since The Sixties.

Finally, nothing is more hysterical than reading those who bitterly complain 15:17 To Paris is painfully boring??? By comparison to what??? A perverse story about a predatory pedophile and his boyish sex toy, cycling interminably through the countryside (Call me by Your Name) or a soporific hackneyed tribute to a journalistic relic, now transmogrified into a "liberal" propaganda vehicle (The Post)?

The only way that Eastwood stood any chance of gaining favor amongst the predictable film/TV reviewers and those mindless puppets who endorse their incessant politically correct agitprop would have been to invent a new fictional American soldier (possibly a black transgender Clintonite who rants incoherently against all things military); naturally, in order to gain approval from Hollywood's cultural watchdogs posing as erudite critics, that 4th fictional American soldier MUST be portrayed by an anti-Trump lunatic (maybe the gender-ambiguous Whoopi Goldberg?) and, of course, he/she/it would be expected to be the leader/guru of the military foursome. If Eastwood had invented such a fictional albeit ludicrous 4th American warrior, then the predominantly vacuous critics would have heaped praise upon the film and provided a 98% approval rating, along with the many callow social justice warriors who detest the military and the noble ideals for which they stand.

Fortunately, Eastwood is not a mercenary opportunist nor an ideological lemming, as the vast majority of Hollywood denizens happens to be; so, despite those who likely warned him otherwise, Eastwood stood by the Art of his convictions, and once again, created yet another singular masterpiece.