From Paris With Love

From Paris With Love stars Jonathan Rhys Myers as James Reece as a low-level bureaucrat at a foreign office in Paris who is looking for that jump up the ladder and the accompanying excitement that it will bring.

Without warning, Reece is thrust into an international espionage ring and teamed with lunatic agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta). Reece gets all the excitement he can handle. Meanwhile, people are getting shot-up, drugs are everywhere, and now he finds himself in grave danger.

To complicate matters, there's a mole in the circle and Reece is forced to confront his biggest fears. For entertainment value, Travolta is an absolute nut who just happens to know everything, sort of like a super agent who's totally lucky ALL the time.

From Paris With Love also stars big names such as Kasia Smutnia, François Bredo, and Mostéfa Stit. It's amazing that director Pierre Morel was able to attract such famous actors.

The movie is rated R for violence, drug use, language, violence, and situations that are much too convenient to resemble reality. From Paris With Love is 93 minutes long, 13 minutes long if you watch it on a faster speed.

While the comedic entertainment value is there, this movie is a no-brainer. You're not really contemplating the intellectual complexity of the crimes. There's nothing to think about. It's all given to you. The only thing you're doing is counting bodies and shaking your darn head at the things that Travolta says.

I give From Paris With Love 2.7 stars.

Taking of Pelham 123

This is a remake of the 1974 film that had a decent cast including Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Dick O'Neill, and future Seinfeld show husband and wife Jerry Stiller and Doris Roberts.

The modern version of the movie, that includes a lot more cussing, includes Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzmán, John Tuturro, and James Gandolfini, who goes from the head of the mob in The Sopranos to the mayor of the city.

In the 35 years that have passed since the original, the plot has changed very little. A New York subway train is hijacked (the Pelham 123) and stopped in a tunnel. Through some mechanical wizardry, they are able to take over the communications and begin making their demands to dispatch.

Recently demoted to train dispatcher because of a bribery investigation, Zachary Garber (Denzel) initially makes contact with criminal mastermind Ryder (Travolta). Despite the disparity of their roles in the current situation, they form a bond because they know what it's like when the man comes down on them.

This exciting thriller is full of action and hostile dialog, which means a lot of cussing, much like you would expect from a movie with hostages and a crazed man with guns. The Taking of Pelham 123 was directed by Tony Scott, a well known director who has other thrillers on his resume such as Spy Game, Enemy of the State, Crimson Tide (another Denzel movie), and Top Gun.

The movie is an hour and 40 minutes long and is rated R for non-stop F bombs and violence, which includes shooting and intense car accidents.

I enjoyed watching this movie and having seen the original version recently, enjoyed looking for the parallels between the two movies. There are some differences, but I think Tony Scott did a good job of not deviating too much from the original to make this an entirely different movie.

I give The Taking of Pelham 123 1-2-3-4 stars.