From Paris With Love

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:18:00 +0000

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent — Isaac Asimov

Luc Besson is credited with the “story” for this violent comic book of a thriller that is an insult to Paris. Years ago, Besson wrote Le Dernier Combat and The Fifth Element, flicks that are still worth seeing. He either wrote From Paris With Love in one second on the back of a postage stamp, is imaginatively bankrupt, or really needs the money. (All three perhaps?) Here’s the so-called story.

James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), personal assistant to the American ambassador in Paris, dabbles in tame black ops, such as clandestinely swapping license plates. One day, Charlie Wax (John Travolta, gun in one hand, ham in the other) arrives from the States for some extra-special ops, and Reece gets to be his partner. You can tell Wax is a badass because he’s built like a wrestler, has a bald head and black goatee, and cusses out French Customs. Sure enough, Wax is not in Gay Paree two minutes before he annihilates a Chinese restaurant, walks off with a vase full of cocaine, punches out six gnarly Asians at once, and announces plot points (how postmodern!). He proceeds to liquidate Paki terrorists. Yes, “Paki,” because that's how Wax talks, spouting racist jive that we’re apparently supposed to think is jocular because, you know, it’s Travolta, and he can so do glib-cutesypoo-charming-funny while mowing down foreign baddies. That’s acting for you. Hah-hah.

Reese, downright priggish on mayhem and slaughter, reproves Wax’s methods. Not to worry. He is bound to come-on-over to righteous American slo-mo killing. What happens, see, is that Reece gets blood on his face from an offed terrorist and then observes himself in a mirror. (Get it?! He sees himself baptized in blood!) Consequently, he begins to male bond with Wax. In the end, Reece proves he is a pistol-packing man—just like Wax has taught him to be—so much an hombre, in fact, that he can shoot his girlfriend and strut off to play chess with Wax. Yup, that's Reece’s character arc: He changes from being reticent about killing to wholeheartedly embracing it.

Admittedly, the fight and slow motion sequences are crisply edited, but the narrative is just one set piece after another of shoot kill, shoot kill, kill kill kill. That’s why the film exists. The many males and couple of females gunned down are nearly all swarthy or almond-eyed types. Beaucoup spurting blood squibs interspersed with jokes accompany les massacres. Thus the rancidity of the violent, big-American-star, buddy film is on display once again.

You will notice I’m not disposed to speak well of From Paris With Love. Alas, honesty compels me to note that near the end of the second act there is a car chase. From The Keystone Cops to Bullitt and beyond, car chases are a worthy subset of film genres. In this “how-did-they-do-that?” chase, Travolta/Wax, clutching a bazooka, hangs out the side window of a monster silver Audi doing about 150mph (flagrantly effective product placement). Wax needs a clear bead on a car in front so he can blow it to smithereens. The road is a European super highway, so the other cars all around are zipping right along, too. The pursuit swerves between comical and death defying. Whichever, it’s a knuckle-biting gas and up there with the best car chases ever on film.

But is a great car chase a good enough reason to watch a stupid, ugly film that makes yet another spectacle of killing people? Perhaps Luc Besson and everyone associated with this dross may still be perceptive enough to discern a rhetorical question when they encounter one.

Written by: Neil Flowers, February 17th 2010

Away from Her

admin — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 21:50:00 +0000

Directed by Sarah Polley

Lionsgate

In her adaptation of Alice Munro's short story, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain," Canadian actress, political activist and first-time director Sarah Polley bridges generations and experience in her striking film about aging, adultery and love. As both of my grandmothers have relocated to assisted care facilities in only the past six months—one with a husband still at home—I found Away From Her to be a particularly remarkable piece that tackles personal tragedy in a charitable and broad fashion, exploring the complexity of old age infirmity coupled with equally convoluted infidelity.

Award-winning actors Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent give poignant performances as a happily retired couple suddenly faced with the reality of early-onset Alzheimer’s. As Fiona and husband Grant make the excruciating decision to move her into an assisted living facility after a nearly inseparable forty-four years, they are also faced with shadows from their past. As if the transition were not already disruptive, after the first month in the center—a forced period of seclusion to help Fiona "settle in"—Grant returns to find his wife emotionally attached to another man.

In addition to navigating the difficulties of memory loss, Away From Her explores extramarital amour and the active choice to ultimately rebuild a marriage. After an affair early in their relationship, Grant has been forgiven by providing Fiona the new life he promised as penance. But faced with a resurgence of their martial ghosts, Grant ponders the poetic justice of Fiona’s new love with the care center’s down-to-earth head nurse Kristy as his confidante. He points out, partially to assuage his own guilt, “We didn’t have such a bad life,” and Kristy, without missing a beat, responds that it always seems to be the men who feel that way.

At twenty-eight, Polley already has a keen director's eye, shown through choice of dense colors and natural light that often floods the screen. A truly gorgeous film starring beautiful people, Polley respectfully reminds us that just because we get older doesn't mean we're no longer sexually, emotionally complex beings.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, June 9th 2007