From Paris With Love

Mr. Clean gets just a little bit tougher on dirt.

(Lionsgate) John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak, Richard Durden, Yin Bing, Amber Rose Revah, Eric Gordon, Francois Bredon, Chems Eddine Dahmani, Alexandra Boyd, Sami Darr, Michael Vander-Meiren. Directed by Pierre Morel

While the cold war came to an end, espionage didn’t. Spies are alive and well and some of them are living in Paris.

James Reese (Rhys Meyers) is a personal aide to the United States ambassador to France (Durden). He is smart, efficient, ambitious and charming. He’s the point man on nearly all of the ambassador’s projects, from a meeting with the French Defense Minister (Gordon) to an upcoming trade summit with African nations. Reese has a beautiful French girlfriend named Caroline (Smutniak) who loves him so much that she proposed to him. Bold, them French girls are.

James also works for a government espionage agency as a low-level functionary. Most of the tasks he’s been giving are fairly routine, like changing license plates on getaway vehicles and placing electronic monitoring devices in the French Defense Minister’s office. He yearns to be a field operative – a spy – doing his part to save the world but up to now he hasn’t gotten the chance. Still, in these tasks he shows efficiency and ingenuity; so much so that he is given a new task – to partner up with a veteran field operative, Charlie Wax (Travolta).

Wax is foul-mouthed, foul-tempered and operates by his own set of rules. He shoots first, asks questions later then shoots again. He doesn’t mind leaving a trail of damage in his wake the size of an F5 tornado swath. With his shaven head and goatee, he resembles a cross between Satan, Mr. Clean and ex-wrestlers Goldberg and Stone Cold Steve Austin and in temperament…well, whichever one of those has the foulest, vilest most evil temper.

He is there investigating a drug ring run by Palestinians. He tells James to take him to a Chinese restaurant, a dodgy one in a seedy part of Paris. He’s heard the egg foo yung (not even a true Chinese dish, as James is only too happy to inform Wax; it’s an entirely American invention) is superior here, but he’s heard wrong. The service isn’t bad though – in fact, it’s killer.

After letting one of the waiters live through the inevitable barrage of bullets, Charlie and James follow the surviving waiter through the back streets of urban Paris to a…an….well, it’s sort of a cross between a mannequin warehouse and a Chinese theater. At least, as far as I could tell; Might have been a skating rink there too for all I know.

He gets the address of someone farther up the food chain and the two, Wax and James – who is beginning to wonder if he’s really cut out for working with a cowboy like Wax – move their way up the ladder, leaving a pile of bodies as they go. However, Wax has told James a liiiiiiiittle white lie; it’s not drug dealers he’s after, but terrorists. And James, as it turns out, is unknowingly involved, right up to his pretentious moustache.

Director Morel last brought us Taken, a surprisingly effective taut thriller. He showed himself to be an effective action director there, and he is here as well. The car chases are well-staged and the fights for the most part, well-choreographed. There is enough of an adrenaline rush here to keep you going for the whole movie.

What doesn’t work quite as well is the story. A good spy story should have things coming at you from every direction, but there isn’t much of that here. There is a big twist to the plot but it isn’t anything you haven’t seen and can’t predict. Simple can be better in most cases, but in others simple doesn’t work quite as well.

What does work well is Travolta. Completely unrecognizable as Charlie Wax, Travolta takes the opportunity to go completely over-the-top. Alone of anyone in this movie he seems to be having a good time and he takes us along for the ride. If there’s a reason for a sequel to this movie, it’s to see what Charlie does next.

Rhys Meyers, of Showtime’s “The Tudors” has a role that isn’t nearly as fun and doesn’t have the potential, but he makes the humorless James at least palatable. Smutniak also does really well as Caroline; of all the characters she might have had the most depth, but unfortunately the writers chose not to really explore it so she winds up symbolizing the film as something of a wasted opportunity.

Still, as mindless entertainment goes this is top-notch. Travolta is at the top of his game and that alone is worth the price of admission. There are several sly references to Pulp Fiction which may not be the best idea – who wants to remind themselves of a better movie than the one they’re watching – but for my part I found those references to be a nice homage. The movie, in any case, is the cinematic equivalent of a Royale with Cheese; tasty but ultimately filled with empty calories.

REASONS TO GO: Travolta is obviously having a good time with his larger-than-life role and it elevates the movie. Morel is a strong action director.

REASONS TO STAY: The story isn’t particularly innovative and the big twist isn’t much of a surprise (ask Da Queen – I called it early on). The villains aren’t particularly intimidating.

FAMILY VALUES: The violence can be bloody and occasionally gruesome. The language is pretty rough and there is also some drug use depicted. Teens and older only.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The 1955 film To Paris With Love is said to have been the inspiration for the Ian Fleming James Bond novel To Russia With Love which was made into a film in 1963. None of the three films are related.

HOME OR THEATER: Ahhhh I gotta go big screen on this one. Not that it’s got grand vistas or big effects; it just feels like a popcorn movie to me.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: The Wolfman

Taken

Liam Neeson takes time to do his squats during a firefight; after all, a spy's gotta stay in shape.

(20^th Century Fox) Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Katie Cassidy, Goran Kostic, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, David Warshofsky, Holly Vallance, Xander Berkeley. Directed by Pierre Morel

When it comes to France, there are some things that you can take as absolute facts that are undeniable. One, that the Eifel Tower will always be the symbol of Paris. Two, that you will eat better at any sidewalk bistro than you will in all the fast food purveyors in America. Finally, that Luc Besson knows how to make a good action movie and will churn one out year after year after year.

In this Besson-produced thriller, Bryan Mills (Neeson) used to work for the CIA. He was, in his own terminology, a “fixer,” the kind of guy who would be sent in to stop a problem before it starts, whether by a timely assassination, a daring theft or a campaign of disinformation. Not that the CIA doesn’t engage in such things but I don’t get the impression they do that kind of work all that often.

Anyway, as will often happen with interesting jobs, Mills’ job becomes his life and his wife (Janssen) packs up and leaves, taking their 17-year-old daughter (Grace) with her. Not long after, she marries a mega-rich American industrialist (Berkeley) whose idea of a birthday gift is not just a pony but a future Kentucky Derby winner. It’s kind of hard to compete with that when all you have to give is a karaoke machine.

Mills decides to hang up his black ops jumpsuit and move to the States to be closer to his daughter but his bitchy wife prevents this at almost every turn. Mills the suave icy-cool spy quickly becomes the hangdog intimidated ex-husband who meekly accepts the crap his ex-wife hands him and sits at home counting the hours until he can spend time with his daughter. Hard to believe a man of action such as Mills would settle for this kind of role, but okay.

When his daughter Kim (Grace) phones up dad to set up a one-on-one lunch (just the two of them), Mills is overjoyed – until he finds out that bitchy ex-wife used this as a means to get him to sign a parental consent form allowing Kim to spend the summer in Paris with her friend Amanda (Cassidy) unsupervised, although Kim swears up and down that adult cousins of Amanda will be there to act as chaperones. After some misgivings, Mills gives in.

Of course his misgivings prove to be well-founded. Soon after his daughter lands in Paris, Mills gets a phone call letting him know she’s landed safe and sound – and hears the kidnapping of his daughter over the phone. When one of the kidnappers picks up the phone, Mills tells him in a quiet, calm voice that he doesn’t have money to pay ransom but what he does have is a particular set of skills that would make life unpleasant for his crew and that if he doesn’t turn his daughter back over to him, he will find him and kill him. The bemused kidnapper responds with a single sneered “good luck,” done in a fine Clint Eastwood-like snarling whisper.

From this single two word message, Mills’ buddies at the CIA are able to determine the identity of the kidnapper, his nationality, and that the gang that he’s affiliated with specializes in kidnapping naïve young women and selling them as sex slaves and prostitutes to wealthy men (if they were really that amazing, Bin Laden would have been in a body bag long ago). Oh, and that once 96 hours have passed, his chances for finding his daughter go down to zero. His ex-wife’s new husband sticks Mills on a private jet for Paris where, as you might guess, much mayhem ensues. The only thing missing is the Eifel Tower crumbling to the ground in a graceful swan dive.

Besson protégé Morel does a fine job of pacing the film, particularly during its second half when the action portion of the movie really kicks in. Quite frankly, Paris makes an excellent backdrop to the action sequences as well, so that works in the filmmakers’ favor. Besson delivers a script that mostly works.

It does get a little out to left field from time to time in terms of its internal logic. However, what saves the movie is Neeson. Neeson’s acting chops are beyond question; his work in such films as Schindler’s List and Michael Collins corroborate that. He gives the character a sense of gravitas. Mills is a killing machine, capable of demolition, sharpshooting, lethal hand-to-hand combat and driving like Remy Julienne but he is, at the core, just a sad dad who just wants to see his kid.

The support cast is mostly solid although unremarkable enough. They do their jobs without distinguishing themselves any, leaving Neeson and the action to take center stage which is probably a good thing. The movie was a surprise hit when it was released in January 2009 and not without reason; it also got some pretty impressive critical props.

Action movies work best when you try not to think about them logically but rather just sit back and enjoy the ride. Taken is kicked up a notch in the thoughtfulness department (mostly due to Neeson) but it doesn’t sacrifice one inch of its action pedigree. Mindless entertainment, yes but good mindless entertainment.

WHY RENT THIS: Liam Neeson makes for a natural action star, lending gravitas to his physical skills. The film moves with breakneck pacing, something crucial for a good action movie.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Occasionally veers into the realm of the preposterous but then again, so do most action movies.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a good deal of violence and sexual situations, with the depiction of many girls presumably drugged and raped (at least implied). The language is pretty rough, so all in all not for youngsters.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The martial arts style used by Mills in the film is called Nagasu Do, a hybrid blending Ju-Jitsu, Judo and Aikido. Liam Neeson was trained by SAS soldier Mick Gould for his various skills.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The “Black Ops Field Manual,” available only on the Blu-Ray edition of the release, keeps a running count of the injuries and kills during the movie, displays a clock telling how much time Bryan has left to find his daughter and shows you his exact route from one scene to the next. It’s a good deal of fun!

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: The Night Listener