Album Review

From Paris With love –

• 9th Aug 2010

Travolta is back in action sporting the bald look and goatie beard. As per many of his action heros this guy is a bit of a loose cannon and likes to swear as flamboyantly as possible. And it’s clear after his belated entrance that he is going to be the best thing in this film.

But leading man is relegated to Rhys Meyers who gets the straight man role – and only now and again gets to have fun beating up the odd baddie. Otherwise he has to endure playing confused, bemused and being in love through this accelerated action vehicle from the Luc Besson (Transporter, Taken) production machine.

These films aren’t made to make much sense – only to be vaguely relevant to modern times and full of as many OTT action scenes as possible. It seems Besson and the directors he hires are brought in to create this new group of films to help define European action thrillers. But they are no more or less over the top or ridiculous than the type of kinetic action you get from Asian cinema.

Meyes plays an aspiring agent who is craving a bit of field work on his Paris job – he’s also getting very cosy with a beautiful young lady he proposes to (although later claims to not really knowing much about her?) – then his boss finally offers him the chance to play with the big boys by going to pick up Travolta’s nutter agent from the airport. From this scene onwards it’s clear that the straight man is about to be taken on a ride by the wild card in the pack. And off they go from location to location – one shoot out to the next.

Meyers and Travolta make for a decent enough duo – but it’s the pace that really drives this film and Travolta’s spontaneous character and the moves he makes throughout the film. Extra-wise things are a bit slim. There is a making of which is probably the biggest extra here – but very little effort has gone into supplementary material. It won’t be the reason why you buy the disc.