LR WEEKEND MOVIE REVIEW

From Paris With Love

by Dan Sheill

John Travolta as a brash, foul-mouthed, terrorist-fighting machine equals Eric Dondero’s wet dream. That pretty much sums up From Paris With Love, a fantastic, and fairly original action flick starring John Travolta as the maverick CIA agent Charlie Wax, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers who plays James Reece, a young up and coming assistant at the US Embassy in Paris who gets more than he bargains for in an unexpected promotion from his boss, Ambassador Bennington (played by Richard Durden). On the same night that Reece’s girlfriend proposes to him, Bennington calls up the young officer for a special assignment which involves getting Wax past customs at the airport.

Wax is introduced to the audience as a mile a minute, almost sociopath type personality, determined to get his prized energy drinks past customs by openly insulting the French security there for hating America, and having to have had their asses bailed out of two world wars. Turns out the energy drinks are actually Wax’s favorite guns which propel him into ass kicking action which turns city of Paris upside down. By expropriating a vase full of cocaine from a Chinese restaurant, Wax begins lead Reece on a wild goose chase, which starts as an effort to catch a high profile drug dealer, but ends with the drug revenue leading directly back to Pakistani terror cell.

The movie has several priceless scenes, including one where Reece’s fiance` catches him and Wax together with a prostitute in an elevator. Throughout the movie, Reece cannot fathom that his special lady would ever cross him. But as it turns out, she in fact is working with the Pakistani’s and has manipulated young Reece into a love affair which she uses to gain access to an African Aids Summit where the US Secretary of State was going to visit. The movie comes down to a final scene where the girlfriend reveals herself to be a suicide bomber, and Reece is forced to shoot the woman he loves in the head in order to save the lives of innocent civilians.

I definitely recommend this movie.

Editor's Note - Attorney Dan Sheill is a transplanted Michigander who now lives in Texas. He serves on the Republican Liberty Caucus National Committee, and still runs the Michigan RLC.