Friday, February 05, 2010
A+E, Movies, Reviews

Not much to love about ‘Paris’

A ShortTakes review

What better way to get in the mood for Valentine’s Day than with a movie set in the most romantic city on Earth?

“From Paris with Love” starts that way, with Madeleine Peyroux singing “J’ai Deux Amours.” The main character, James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), is introduced at work, then has a clichéd makeout scene with his girlfriend, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak).

James is an aide to the U.S. ambassador to France, with whom he passes the day playing chess. That’s the cover for his chosen career path: He moonlights as a low-level functionary for the CIA but aspires to Special Ops. He gets his chance when Charlie Wax (John Travolta) comes to Paris and the shorthanded agency assigns James to drive him around.

It becomes obvious that the job will be more complicated when Charlie’s gun tears up a Chinese restaurant that serves as a front for a drug ring. That’s the first of too many such scenes to count. Charlie’s target segues from drug runners to terrorists without a hiccup, because the plot is too ridiculous to worry about a thing like transitions.

A chrome-domed Travolta wisecracks his way through the movie with cheesy humor grounded in profanity and pop-culture references, including one to “Pulp Fiction.” Rhys Meyers maintains an all-American accent and sometimes suggests a young Christopher Walken, minus the personality. “From Paris with Love” is a collection of scenes you’ve seen before and lines you’ve heard before.

Pierre Morel (“Taken”) directs on the premise that if scenes move fast enough, they don’t have to make sense. If you just want to watch a blur of motion while listening to gunfire, this is the movie for you. 2 STARS—Steve Warren