Bullet Points: From Paris With Love

I try to be a nice guy (you never know who might have a hot sister) so I perused my catalogue of movies to find the one where we get to see John Travolta in his most natural state; bald. Leave it to me to respond to the challenge/recommendation of BPA fan Denny. Cheers mate!

Synopsis: Aid to the American Ambassador in Paris James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is itching to get a larger role in the government. The kind of role that is more James Bond and less Ms. Moneypenny. All of that changes when he’s introduced to his new partner Charlie Wax (John Travolta). Wax’s methods are unorthodox, extremely deadly, and terribly fun to watch. Will the two survive long enough to complete their mission or will Xenu return before then?

• You Shaved the Wrong Bits: One of the best things about watching a John Travolta movie is trying to figure out what kind of hairpiece he’s going to wear. Sean Connery wore them for most of his career, Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis have had some pretty good ones, and Mark Wahlberg wore a fake dick for that porno movie so it’s always been a joy to see what his hair people could come up with. Color me surprised when he appears on screen with less hair than the baby from Look Who’s Talking. My gripe, however, isn’t with the choice of no hair for Mr. Travolta but the pencil-thin John Waters mustache that Jonathan Rhys Meyers has. He looks like a younger version of Johnny Depp who is too skinny and weak to beat his wife. Seriously, who thought that little thing would look good on the big screen?
• Besson Around: If you’re watching a French action movie then the odds are it was written or directed by Luc Besson. I dare you to find three movies that he had no role in that were released in the past 20 years.

• Johnny and Mrs. Jones: The real partnership that deserves talking about in this movie is the one between Charlie Wax and his pistol, better known as Mrs. Jones. Wax is introduced and quickly becomes one of my favorite Travolta characters of all time. He may not overact as much as he does in Face/Off or have as many quotable lines as he does in Pulp Fiction but Charlie Wax and his trusty sidearm just may stand the test of time as one of the best Travolta characters ever on screen.
• Shootouts for Shootouts Sake: It isn’t long after Wax and Reese meet up that Wax it throwing himself into situations that only end in copious amounts of bullets and blood. I love me a good shootout, no doubt. The problem with the ones in From Paris With Love is… hmmm, on second thought, the shootouts are the best part of FPWL! I wish more movies would ditch the cliché bullshit of the spy genre and let the agents shoot it out with little regard for local law enforcement.

• Two Pretty Birds: Reese spends a lot of the runtime doing millennial stuff like trying to charge his phone, checking in with his girlfriend, worrying about his jewelry, and crying about all the random Travolta killing. It gets a little annoying. His lady friend, played by the very sexy Kasia Smutniak, mostly makes out with Reese and plays the perfect girlfriend. It was for this reason that I immediately thought she was some sort of undercover bad chick. The movie made the YUGE mistake of not giving us viewers some more skin from Kasia but the film certainly gives her character a much thicker role as the movie rolls along.
• Surprise Heel Turn: Everybody loves to boo the bad guy. Solid heel work can make any good guy look better even if he’s a boring shitbag like Channing Tatum or somebody. FPWL doesn’t suffer from having a weak good guy because Travolta’s Charlie Wax is hilariously good and Meyers isn’t bad enough to take away from him but the not-so-shocking turn of [name redacted] makes for a fun ending to an already enjoyable flick. Would I want to follow the exploits of Reese? Hell no! I would be totally down with more Charlie Wax though…

He may not have any hair but I got Bullet Points out the ass…

• Wax finds the ever elusive bulletproof tables while shooting it out with the Chinese drug dealers.
• Charlie is like the Miss Cleo of secret agents. He somehow knows every possible move the bad guys are gonna make before they do it.
• Travolta uses a pretty standard pole dancing move at one point while sliding downward and shooting the shit out of some bad guys. It gave me flashbacks of all those late nights watching the shoe shows.
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers wears one of the deepest V-necks in action movie history. He also has one of the least messy head shots ever on film. The effects crew must have run out of fake blood when they poured it down the steps pretending it was pasta sauce.

The Verdict: Call me crazy but I had a hell of a lot of fun watching From Paris With Love. I don’t think it broke the bank but Travolta was super fun and Meyers wasn’t the dumpster fire I expected when it started. The movie didn’t have an amazing villain but it was obviously a hero-heavy picture and it offered plenty of cannon fodder for the two to shoot their way through. If you’re sleeping on FPWL like I was then it’s time to wake up and have some fun.