Director Pierre Morel (Taken) teams up once more with writer Luc Besson (Taken, the Transporter series) for another action-packed flick ironically entitled "From Paris with Love".
Yes, the story is set in Paris, where James Reece, played by Golden Globe Best Actor winner Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Elvis), plays administrative assistant by day in the US Ambassador's office and small-time secret agent by night. Itching for some action, Reece's boss relents to his request to do more than just switch license plates and partners him up with loud and brash Charlie Wax, an American spy played by two-time Oscar Best Actor nominee John Travolta (Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever), who is hell-bent on stopping a terrorist from attacking the city.
Rhys-Meyers and Travolta succeed in playing one of the oddest tandems to ever hit the screen. Rhys-Meyers seems to have finally landed the manly action-star role he's never played; this must have been such a big break for him; however, while I liked him in his previous movies where he plays androgynous royal types so well (The Tudors, Matchpoint), his silly mustache and constant poker face in this flick may have played up the discomfort of his transition from deskjob to field a little too well. He just wasn't as charismatic and could not hold up to Travolta, who was a delight to see in such a refreshing, overtly bad-ass role. It could be because the dialogue wasn't written to make Reece sound witty anyway.
There was just something so inexplicably hesitant and clunky (poor editing, perhaps?) when there isn't any action to be had on screen, which is quite unlike Morel and Besson's successful balance of drama and action in "Taken". In any case, trivia junkies will appreciate the not-so-sly nod to McDonald's Royale with Cheese, also Travolta's character's fave in "Pulp Fiction".
Yes, the story is set in Paris, where James Reece, played by Golden Globe Best Actor winner Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Elvis), plays administrative assistant by day in the US Ambassador's office and small-time secret agent by night. Itching for some action, Reece's boss relents to his request to do more than just switch license plates and partners him up with loud and brash Charlie Wax, an American spy played by two-time Oscar Best Actor nominee John Travolta (Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever), who is hell-bent on stopping a terrorist from attacking the city.
Rhys-Meyers and Travolta succeed in playing one of the oddest tandems to ever hit the screen. Rhys-Meyers seems to have finally landed the manly action-star role he's never played; this must have been such a big break for him; however, while I liked him in his previous movies where he plays androgynous royal types so well (The Tudors, Matchpoint), his silly mustache and constant poker face in this flick may have played up the discomfort of his transition from deskjob to field a little too well. He just wasn't as charismatic and could not hold up to Travolta, who was a delight to see in such a refreshing, overtly bad-ass role. It could be because the dialogue wasn't written to make Reece sound witty anyway.
There was just something so inexplicably hesitant and clunky (poor editing, perhaps?) when there isn't any action to be had on screen, which is quite unlike Morel and Besson's successful balance of drama and action in "Taken". In any case, trivia junkies will appreciate the not-so-sly nod to McDonald's Royale with Cheese, also Travolta's character's fave in "Pulp Fiction".