John Travolta stars with Jonathan Rhys Myers in From Paris With Love, the most recent film by director Pierre Morel. Morel directed 2008’s Taken, and its success undoubtedly put him on the radar of actors needing to beef up their action movie resumes. I typically think that action movies not released in Summer tend to be half baked, but Travolta usually puts out quality work. I do want to put this out there for the director – Morel, we get it, you’re French, but how about your next movie taking place outside of France? Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the film at hand.

Rhys Myers (Mission Impossible III, The Tudors) plays James Reese, an intelligence agent. Reese is the assistant to the ambassador of France, an already prestigious job, but he longs to be a full blown field agent. Think of it in terms of James Bond wanting to graduate to double O status. Instead of saving the world one bullet at a time, he is relegated to planting listening devices and changing the license plates of other agent’s getaway cars. Reese must team up with Charlie Wax, played by Travolta, in order to get to the next level in his career. While Reese normally deals with relatively boring diplomatic assignments, Wax is the go to guy when immediate results are necessary on a larger scale. Wax takes Reese along for his latest mission as support, but eventually ends up mentoring him in all things Secret Agent. Reese follows behind Wax attempting to avoid international incidents, and Wax seems to be set on causing them. The ultimate reason Wax is in Paris and the purpose of his mission are revealed one explosion after another. Reese finds out what being a field agent is all about, all the while finding a very innovative use for a vase.

Travolta looks like he had a blast playing this role, something I haven’t necessarily seen from him since the venerable Face/Off. While this movie isn’t quite on that level, it held my attention with all the standard components of any action movie: shoot outs, car chases, explosions, and dry-cool wit. Rhys Myers does a sufficient job playing the fish out of water, and gets a couple of laughs doing it. Based on this movie, I’d probably check out his next starring role, but would keep my expectations low. Although I was not a fan of some of the dialogue in the ending, all in all I’d say you’ve got a decent, albeit formulaic action flick.

From Paris With Love opened Friday, February 5, 2010, has a run time of 1 hour 35 minutes, and is rated R.

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