Movie Review – From Paris With Love

  I went to see this movie last week. It was billed as an action movie with John Travolta as a nut job CIA agent. It has been mostly panned by the movie critics. The movie details US Embassy assistant James Reese’s (played by Rhys Myers) first field mission as a CIA wannabee. He is originally slated to be the driver for top agent Charlie Wax (Travolta). Charlie Wax’s methods appear to be crazy, but at most every turn the method to his madness is shown to be sound. The few breaks in the action deal with Reese initial incredulity with Wax’s methods not meeting his expectations of how a spy should act and the eventual plot turns that lead to the realization that Reese himself was set up to be the unwitting accomplice of a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy. The movie has a snappy ending and everything is wrapped up neatly.

  Other that the gratuitous use of the F-word, I liked this movie a lot. It was non-stop action as advertised and managed to be cerebral in parts without resorting to the meaning of life platitudes of Edge of Darkness. When I watch a movie at the theater instead of going the Redbox route, I want to see more sound and fury on the big screen than I can see on the home TV. This movie delivered more than I could expect on that count.