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 An aging action star, a young ingénue actor, a tried and true producer (Luc Besson) and a hot new director should add up to a rambunctious 90 minutes of free-wheeling action fun. Sadly, for From Paris with Love, this is not the case.
From Paris with Love is the story of James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a low-level CIA desk-jockey that yearns to have a real assignment: one that involves more gun play and less changing of license plates for the real operatives. James has a lovely fiancée, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak), who knows that James is an undercover CIA operative, but not much else.
After much begging and pleading, James finally gets his chance to work with a real operative: Charlie Wax (John Travolta), a ruffian who does things his way. Their mission: revenge for a U.S. Cabinet member’s niece, who died from snorting too much high-grade cocaine. Charlie needs to shut down this ring of drug dealers by any means necessary…and he does just that. He beats up French-Chinese gangbangers. He shoots French-Chinese drug runners. He even blows up French-Middle Eastern terrorists. Yes, terrorists.
It’s right around this moment in the story that the movie plummets from cheesy popcorn flick into utterly and completely ridiculous tripe. In one simple line, Charlie tells James that every piece of information he’d espoused was totally false. This isn’t about revenge, this is about stopping terrorists. This is about making sure we get them over there before they can come get us over here.
John Travolta tries his best to play the tough, bad guy that he’s played a few times before in his long career. Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction and Chili Palmer from Get Shorty and Be Cool are good examples of how Travolta can kick it up a notch and be an authoritative thug. Unfortunately for Travolta, Charlie Wax is more like all of the horrible roles that he’s played rolled into one. At one point, Travolta actually says, “Wax on, Wax off; it’s a catch phrase,” after killing a bad guy. Sticking tough-sounding dialogue into a character’s mouth does not make it so. What made Vincent Vega and Chili Palmer work so well is that they were cool. They could take a slap to the face and turn back to smile before shooting you. If you were to slap Charlie Wax, he’d probably scream profanities and then shoot you while crying.
 Jonathan Rhys Meyers is particularly wasted in this film. You can practically see the phone hanging from his ear as he phones in yet another scene. Granted, the material isn’t fantastic; Adi Hasak, Paris’ screenwriter, hasn’t had a movie made since 1997’s Shadow Conspiracy starring, of all people, Charlie Sheen. It could very well be that this script was put through the studio’s meat grinder so many times that the resulting mess isn’t what Hasak intended at all.
This is Pierre Morel’s third directing feature, after the frenetic parkour action film District B13 and the tremendously popular Taken starring Liam Neeson. Both of these films had one thing in common: an incredible amount of action originality. Both District B13 and Taken did things that audiences hadn’t seen before; From Paris with Love comes off as a cookie-cutter action movie with perhaps one or two scenes of originality. Audiences should expect more from the helmer of Taken rather than a sad retread of 90% of the action movies in existence.
The editing also leaves much to be desired. Whenever the action sequences start, the movie is loud and obnoxious and most of the time the scenes fly by so quickly, it’s hard to tell who is shooting at whom. There is a scene of a foot chase on top of some Paris rooftops that’s particularly hard to watch; it goes on for far too long and is extremely confusing as to where the actors are running to or from.
This isn’t to say that the movie is a complete and total stinker. The scenes where Travolta and Rhys Meyers are able to sit and talk are quite compelling. It’s a disservice to the audience that these scenes are few and far between, and a sad reminder that Travolta is still a good actor when he’s not trying to be over the top and scream badly written dialogue at the top of his lungs.
 Another bright spot in the film is Polish actress Kasia Smutniak (Caroline) who shines in her simple beatific way. She takes what is relatively atrocious dialogue and makes it her own, outshining both Travolta and Rhys Meyers in their shared scenes. This is Smutniak’s first real American movie role and she took it very seriously. It will be interesting to see if From Paris with Love will get her any future roles in Hollywood.
Be warned: From Paris with Love is a loud, dumb action movie. Given that it is being released in February, it will probably make a ton of money and everyone’s careers will stay intact. Just don’t expect any Oscars come this time next year.
From Paris with Love is now playing in theaters.
For more information, visit the film’s official Web site.
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