From Paris With Love

In this bullet-riddled action thriller, Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as James Reece, a double agent in Paris toiling as an adroit, chess-playing attaché to the American ambassador (Richard Durden) while also being a low-level undercover CIA errand boy who swaps license plates on cars in parking garages. James also has a gorgeous French Muslim fiancée, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak). When our hero finally is given a really challenging assignment, he's teamed with foul-mouthed Special Agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta), a freewheeling former mercenary whose trigger-happy, bad-boy antics could very well blow their cover while they try to take down Chinese coke dealers and capture a suicide bomber connected to a Pakistani terrorist ring. The Uzi-toting, leather-clad Wax is introduced as he tries to sneak a suitcase full of energy drinks (whose contents hold firearms) through customs—before strapping on automatic weapons, loading a rocket launcher, and embarking on exploding SUVs around the City of Light. Directed by Pierre Morel as a quirky, kinetic, odd-couple action-adventure film, From Paris With Love swiftly devolves into a nonsensical shambles, marked by Tarantino-esque bloody violence (with an astonishingly high corpse count) and an over-the-top turn by Travolta. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Pierre Morel, a “making-of” featurette (27 min.), a “Spies, Spooks and Special Ops: Life Under Cover” featurette on real-life spies (16 min.), a “Secrets of Spy Craft: Inside the International Spy Museum” featurette (5 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are a picture-in-picture video version of the commentary, a “Friend or Foe” trivia game, a “Charlie Wax's Gun Locker” interactive featurette on the weapons of the film, the BD-Live function, and a bonus digital copy of the film. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a disappointing film.] (S. Granger)