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From Paris with Love

March 31, 2012
Film Reviews
1 Comment

From Paris with Love: A govt rookie teams up with an unconventional seasoned spy to take down a drug / terrorist ring in the city of love. This is essentially an action film with every cliché in the book: rookie cop with trigger issues, unconventional old-timer who gets results, and some of the most obvious twists in history – you all know the drill. There’s a lot of flashy direction with fast wooshing CGI pans, and action set pieces. Other than a couple of big, loud, fighty action scenes the only major redeeming feature is Travolta hamming it up: albeit with a brazen, overly offensive script. While it’s definitely not his finest 90, he is rrrather entertaining – even sneaks in a “Royale with cheese” – OH NO HE DIII IIINT!!! His partner (Jonathan Rhys Meyers – form a queue, ladies) is ok, but is basically there to say Travolta’s name (Wax) about 2,000 times. Despite using as many tricks as the budget could facilitate – flashy stunts / big action jumps / explosions / swearing / big stars – nobody could hide the fact that this is the kind of film you’ve seen a thousand times before, but in Paris instead of somewhere Stateside. From Paris with Love is a wild ride, but it’s the very definition of braindead action, even by Europacorp/Besson standards!

Score: 3.5/10

Four Lions

May 10, 2010
Film Reviews
3 Comments

Four Lions: follows a band of useless homegrown terrorists and their attempt to inflict maximum damage to a London target, hopefully starting an uprising. The only remotely realistic character is Omar: the other four bombers turn the film into a slapstick / comedy of errors and are so unbelievably stupid that it’s hard to take any of the more emotive scenes at face value. This said, the out-and-out satire parts are the best by a long shot and in typical Morris style most of the best jokes are ‘random’-based. The last section (London Marathon attack) is great and salvages an otherwise tepid comedy – almost every single big laugh had already been splurged all over the trailers & TV spots. This trivial take on terrorism will hit a lot of nerves and while it’s quite topical – detention / house raids / torture / Afghanistan – the few serious messages are completely overshadowed by the buffoonery. Four Lions is an alright film, but doesn’t come close to the brilliance of Chris Morris’s previous works like The Day Today, Brass Eye, Blue Jam or even Nathan Barley.

Score: 4/10