Reviewed by: Emanuel Caros

From Paris, With Love is a lot like John Travolta's goatee in the movie: awkward, unnecessary, over-the-top, and doused with "Just for Men" hair dye.

Pierre Morel's follow-up to his 2008 hit Taken did very little to stand-out from any other buddy cop action movie.  In fact, if anything, it hurt its own credibility by casting an extremely over-the-top Travolta and a surprisingly poor performing Jonathan Rhys Meyers.  Travolta's take on the "Charlie Wax" character is an old white guy version of Alonzo from Training Day, which doesn't turn out well.  Rhys Meyers, whom I am a fan of as King Henry VIII in HBO's The Tudors plays a dorky politician's aid who is vying for a promotion as a special agent.  Not that the script gave him much to work with, but the character just fell flat, without any depth or back-story except that he was from the projects of New York City and "the only one from [his] block to make it out alive."  It was clearly the Charlie Wax show, and Rhys Meyers' character was just a stand-in. 

Despite the unfortunate casting, the story was alright.  There was nothing that hadn't been seen before, but it flowed well and didn't have many holes.  The movie takes place in about a 24-hour time-span, which seems more like 30 minutes.  Early in the film there is some attempt at suspense, as Rhys Meyers' character finds a trail of blood leading up to his apartment, only to find out that his fiance has spilled some spaghetti sauce.  That was just too ridiculous and warranted nothing but a groan.   While the action scenes are really exciting and fun, realism is clearly thrown out of the window in favor for John Travolta doing Kung Fu (which, for humor's sake, I can most certainly deal with!)

I was disappointed by the fact that, despite the title, very little of Paris is displayed.  If it wasn't for the minute-long scene at the Eiffel Tower and some foreign police cars, this whole thing could have taken place in Humboldt, Iowa and there would be very little difference. 

Finally: the dialogue.  I wish I was eloquent enough to tear apart this script like it deserves.  One-liners like "Welcome to Paris, Baby!" and "I spend my money on two things: cars and girls" left me shaking my head, embarrassed for whoever checked off on such cheesy lines.  Because of this, I shouldn't have been surprised by the ridiculous monologue Rhys Meyers presents at the end of the film about how love is the answer.  Gag me.  Despite it all, I let out a genuine laugh at this golden nugget of dialogue between Travolta and Rhys Meyers, after shooting some Chinese drug dealers:

Rhys Myers: How many of them are left?

Travolta: Last census? About a billion.

The movie is crap.  It is In Bruges as directed by Brett Ratner.   If you're desperately looking for a fun action movie, go see (I can't believe I'm saying this...) Mel Gibson's Edge of Darkness (review here).

3/10

p.s. Kevin Smith's Cop Out trailer got NO laughs during the previews...