From Paris with Love
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Pierre Morel
Starring John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: June 8, 2010

The ruin of From Paris With Love is caused by nothing other than its having relied on mindless and exaggerated action for the entire film. The title alone suggestions an early James Bond film with the same characteristics of mindlessness. Take out the action and what is left is a thing (can’t even call it a movie) of empty sounds. Director Pierre Morel, from a script by Adi Hasak, shows his incompetency in his inability to construct a cohesive film. His attention to the film’s plot is neglected, simply gathering ideas from numerous of other action films and employing them within his. Rather, he finds attention in the film’s many action sequences, all used up to the point of exhaustion. Finding any semblance of probability in the film can be a forlorn task because there isn’t any. What surprisingly drives the film, though, from start to finish is its unmatched reliance on the action scenes, all in which, paradoxically, keep the movie from succeeding and failing at the same time.

There is an extreme inefficiency in the film’s competence to construct the lowest plausibility factor available. It is a violent impetuosity of bombardment that guiltily works us over with time. But within that time frame we know soon enough that we are watching a film of ultimate futility, making sense of nothing and having no second thoughts about its inability to construct something that has the smallest grain of resonance. There are times where it unconsciously implies disdain rather than the coolness and heroism it is aiming for. Still, Morel’s passion for extreme action keeps the movie moving at a well paced time, never stepping outside of his continuous harmony.