From Paris with Love is an action film starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and directed by Pierre Morel. The screenplay was co-written by Luc Besson.
The plot of the film is interesting. James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a personal aide to the U.S. Ambassador in France. He leads an enviable life in Paris. He has a beautiful French girlfriend. But his real passion is his side-job as a low-level operative for the CIA. He is assigned partner to special agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta). First, Reese has to have Wax released from airport detention by the French Customs. Wax does not want to surrender the cans of his favourite energy drink to the Customs. Wax even verbally abuses French Customs. But Reeve places a Diplomatic Mail sticker on Wax's luggage containing the energy drink and this makes Wax immune from Customs and Quarantine requirements. The tins actually contain pieces of Wax's personal stainless steel pistol. He has been sent to Paris to investigate a drug ring, as the result of an overdose of a niece of the Secretary of Defense. During the investigation, Wax reveals that there was no overdose and that his goal is to trace the money back to a circle of Pakistani terrorists. Evidence leads them to the terrorists. There is an armed confrontation in which most of the terrorists are killed. Wax and Reese learn that the terrorists plan to infiltrate the US Embassy with explosives hidden beneath their burqas. Reese learns that the terrorists are targeting a summit. He also discovers that his fiancée, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak) is a sleeper, assigned to live with him. When Caroline is confronted, she shoots Reese, hitting his shoulder, and escapes through a window. The last remaining terrorist tries to attack a US motorcade and Wax destroys the vehicle with an AT4 rocket launcher. Reese finds Caroline at the summit. She attempts to detonate her vest, forcing Reese to shoot her in the forehead, killing her. As Wax leaves Paris, Reese escorts him to his plane. Wax offers a full-time partnership. The two then play a game of chess.
The best thing about the film is John Travolta's endearingly over-the-top performance. Everything's fast and furious, the good guys rarely miss, and the bad guys rarely hit. The romance between Rhys-Meyers and Kasia Smutniak is effective. After only a couple of scenes you get convinced that these two are lovers. The film has John Travolta doing a slightly different version of his character from the film The Taking of Pelham 123. The character Wax is shown as a wild man. He doesn't follow protocol and gets thing done in his own way. Reece, on the other hand, is uncomfortable. He's not a man of action. He is a thinker. He likes chess.
Thus From Paris With Love is an action movie, in which a realistic secret agent, whose job consists mostly of planting bugs and maintaining his cover as a personal assistant at the US embassy in Paris, teams up with a secret agent whose job consists mostly of killing dozens of people a day and getting laid.
The movie depicts Reece as orthodox while Wax is shown as a liberal man. Wax appears like a rogue agent and it appears as if there is a method to his madness. Reece is made to follow Wax's crazy orders and sacrifice his principles and also the love of his life. He doesn't jeopardize his career by trusting his conservative instincts. Both Wax and Reece form a perfect pair of crime fighters. The film shifts admirably from Reece's calculated world of leisurely-paced moderation in the first act to Wax's shoot-'em-up lifestyle in the second. Their contrasting methodologies are perfectly illustrated. In the beginning there is conflict between the two heroes. But gradually there is no conflict since Wax is right and Reece is mostly wrong.
Thus From Paris with Love is a film which has a plot-line involving drug dealers and terrorists who are tackled by two terrific heroes, one of whom is orthodox while the other is liberal. The movie is interesting and hence deserves to be watched. So don't give the film a miss. Do watch it!
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